Mulching Mowers - Views please

These machines seem to be an ideal solution if you don't want to collect grass.
But do they have any negative aspects?

Also, can you get them with rollers to acheive the dark and light stripes?

Bernard

 

They leave clumps of grass if the grass is slightly damp or moderately long. They work fine if your cutting weekly but on the proviso above that the grass is not damp.

The other down side is you get a thatch build up, so youll need to scariffy more often.

 

Paul,

Thanks for such a quick reply.
This confirms my feeling that there would be some potential problems.
As well as looking unsightly I suppose that if you left the thatch this could encourage Moss requiring more lawn care later in the year?

Many thanks,
Bernard

 

"As well as looking unsightly I suppose that if you left the thatch this could encourage Moss requiring more lawn care later in the year?"

Hmmm ... I tend to the view that you are removing less nitrogen. and you will have to deal with the thatch at some point (maybe you give the lawn a good sacrifying anually anyway?), I'm not sure it matters either way - although Pro's views are always insightful. Clearly mowing it when wet is going to leave blobs of clippings, but I reckon that's only a problem if your available time to mow is restricted and you have to mow regardless of the weather; otherwise choose the time you mow - I prefer to mow when it isn't raining, myself

I like to pile up my mower clippings and let them rot over time (a year or two) and then have the benefit of a "large pile of compost" when I have a need for it. But depends a bit whether you have space for a Clippings Pile, or not - and the added work of carting them from mower-to-pile.

 

Kristen,

Thanks for your thoughts.
I used to mow a bowling green and three tennis courts so got a fair amout of "mowings", when I initially tried to compost them I ended up with a big smelly pile of yellow then black "gunk". :o
But when I started to put the mowings on the general garden compost heap, as long as I didn't put a great big pile of fresh grass in a single layer, this worked fine.

Bernard

 

I don't really worry too much about the state of my mowings pile - it rots down in the end. However, once the pile is a decent size I spread the new additions evenly all over it - so its only a few inches thick, and I think that the fact that the "new stuff" is only a few inches thick stops it getting too anaerobic when composting, and thus mitigates that problem.