Why manual push mowers are ultra-convenient for lawn care
Tadahiro Kanemasu was bewildered. Some Toyko subway stops don’t have an escalator or elevator. This made it a serious chore to carry heavy bags up and down dimly lit stairs. Kanemasu wanted to give a hand to lighten the load for subway passengers — but hardly anyone would accept his help. Was it because they were put off by a random stranger approaching them in a dimly lit corridor?
The solution Kanemasu found was a brightly coloured spandex suit. He looked just like a superhero in the outfit. You’d think people would be even more put off by a random stranger — now in a brightly coloured suit — approaching them and offering to carry their bags. But then again, everyone expects superheroes to be helpful! Indeed — the costume was the key to getting people to accept his assistance. Struggling alone with a heavy bag is no fun. But a superhero that carries your bags for you is definitely convenient.
When it comes to yardwork, convenience isn’t always the first thing we think about. It’s especially not top of mind when we’re talking about manual push mowers. But in fact, there are a few aspects of push mowers that make them seriously convenient. In this article, we’re going to talk about how push mowers are:
1. very quiet
2. not very bulky
3. not very fussy
First, let’s talk about how quiet they are
A typical scene in a suburban community on a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon may seem a bit incomplete without the hum of a lawnmower droning on somewhere nearby. So is the noise that most lawnmowers make really that deafening? Not necessarily, especially during the day time. But it depends on what else is going on at the time.
Does anyone dare mow their lawn later in the evening?
Things quiet down a lot in the evening. Suddenly, loud noises like a gasoline lawnmower can stand out very clearly. It’s pretty unlikely anyone will mow their lawn when things start to quiet down, so they don’t disturb everyone’s evening. This is when push mowers can really shine.
I’ve found that in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, but there’s still sunlight, it can be a good time to do a bit of yard work. Every little bit you do during the week frees up the weekend time to do something different, after all. And push mowers give this opportunity.
There’s no disturbing the neighbourhood as they just don’t make much in the way of noise. But giving you a flexible schedule isn’t the only kind of convenience push mowers provide you. There’s another way their flexibility helps, but it has to do with space and not time. This brings us to the next point, on how large push mowers are.
Typically, push mowers aren’t very bulky
When’s the last time you hefted up a full-sized gasoline or electric lawn mower? It’s not something you see happen very often as they can be really bulky and heavy. But being bulky and heavy also has an impact on where you actually need to keep it when you’re not using it. There’s only so much space you have in your garage or garden shed. Each thing you store in there eats up just a little more space — and it all adds up.
Not only that, you have to make it easy to get at the mower, especially if it’s heavy, and if you’re going to be dragging it out once per week in the summer time. So a gasoline or electric mower takes up some prime easy-to-access space in the garage or shed. Now, this is where manual push mowers have the advantage.
Manual push mowers are simple in design
They have a few gears, wheels, and cutting edges. So they are almost always smaller and easier to manage than a gasoline or electric mower. Do you need to heft it up in the air? Not necessarily, but it all just comes down to how many choices you have about where you can store it in your shed or your garage.
How large and bulky a mower is can be an important factor. But there’s another consideration when we’re talking about convenience. This brings us to the last point: how manual push mowers aren’t very fussy.
What do you mean by fussiness anyway?
It’s more about a combination of maintenance and how you use the mower itself. A gasoline mower needs just that — gasoline — to actually run. So this means the odd trip to the store for a fill up. But you’re also going to have to store some fuel somewhere for the next time you’re running low in the mower. It’s just a few extra details to take care of in the long run.
Now how are electric mowers fussy? You certainly don’t need to generally worry about electricity: it’s pretty cheap in most places. But where electric mowers are fussier is in the power cord you need to run it. If you don’t have an outdoor plug nearby, you’re going to need a really long extension cord to cover the whole lawn.
On top of this, the last thing you want to do is run over the extension cord as you’re going back and forth over the grass. You have to keep grabbing the line and flipping it around like a jump rope to keep it out of the way of the mower.
Now a manual push mower? You grab the push bar and go! No need to worry about electrical cords to run over, and no gasoline to go out and buy, store, and fill up. The only thing that’s going to run out of gas is you!
But aren’t manual push mowers hard work?
They can be, but there’s a lot you can do to make it easier. Many push mowers have an adjustable cutting height. This is the height it will leave the grass after you’ve trimmed it. The greater amount you are trying to cut, the harder it is going to be to push.
The other thing you can do to help reduce the effort is to increase the overlap with the area you’ve already cut. Rather than cutting a new swath through the lawn, if you overlap, say, half of the cutting head, it will significantly reduce the pushing effort. This does lead to a mistake that you can make when working with a manual push mower, though.
Be sure to keep an eye on the lawn
All manual push mowers are a little bit different. The one that I use can cut grass down to 4" in height, which is pretty high. But if you really let the grass grow much longer than that, it’s just going to lean over instead of getting cut by the push mower. So a manual push mower might not be for you if you don’t mow the lawn super regularly, or perhaps can’t get to it on a fairly regular basis.
We covered a few aspects of manual push mowers, and it’s time to review
Convenience isn’t necessarily the first thing you think of when manual push mowers come up. But there are a few key ways they can be the most convenient. They are awfully quiet, so you can mow in the evening, without bothering your neighbours. They are also often not very bulky, so it gives you more options to store them in your garage or shed. Finally, push mowers are pretty simple and just not that fussy — there’s no gas needed to run them, and no electrical cord to worry about running over.
In Tokyo, a superhero might appear to help you carry your heavy bags up the stairs at the subway. We should be so lucky if a superhero appeared to mow our lawns for us! But while we wait for one to show up, a push mower may be something well worth considering as an alternative.
Next Step
Read more on Kanemasu and his super hero gig in Toyko here.
