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Given the right conditions and a decent mulching mower the benefits to the lawn are great and the finish is brilliant but I stress you must mulch ideally every five to 7 days.
In my experience most walk behind mulching mowers don’t allow you to cut too low and not all clients appreciate the extra height of the grass sward. However mulching mowers and particularly the more expensive ones have improved over the years and this may no longer be a major issue.
If attempting to mulch when the grass is over a couple of inches you can always cut two / three times and with each mow bring the blades down.
Mulching is too messy when the grass is wet.
But during heat waves or extreme summer (if we ever get one!!), mulching enables the lawn to retain moisture.
I firmly believe that if mulched correctly then the grass cuttings being put back would save you one chemical feed per year. Hence the mulched grass becoming a natural fertiliser.
If you are to mulch lawns, I would strongly advise you to let your clients know that you will be doing this as conditions permit and sell the benefits of mulching.
Whilst you can purchase “combination mowers” which cut and collect, side or rear discharge and also mulch there is probably only one mower that you can mulch and have the rear roller for stripes.
In an ideal world you would have a mulching mower and also rear roller mower and pick and choose as required.
I did mulch a lot of lawns last year and I must admit the finish and lushness was excellent but clients kept insisting on stripes.
However use a poor quality mulcher mower on a poor quality lawn the results would be very disappointing.
As you rightly said, not having to cart away ton bags every day is very attractive and says tipping charges if you can’t recycle yourself. Most councils are now issuing "green waste" bins and on some of our clients we use these in return for a slight discount.
However the recent batch of clients that we have just taken over have all been mulched for the last two years and I must say are of very poor quality and all have too much thatch.
Having not really thought about mulching before, i must admit i had completely forgotten about using a dedicated mulching mower and had just envisaged leaving the grass box off!
What is it that makes a mower a mulcher? i have an etesia pro 46 PHTS but it was second hand and i have no manual to refer to but i believe there is a 'mulching kit' available!
Unfortunately none of my clients have a dedicated green waste bin supplied by the council, i have seen them around and indeed me mum as one where she lives.
I would'nt mind so much getting rid of the grass waste its just having to pay the council for the convenience, they charge a minimum £20 every time and i rarely even come close to half of the first weight band!
1 Tonne would cost me £110 to dump, but thats a hell of a lot of green waste to mess about with!
What do you do with it all before it's a 1 tonne load?
I do occasionally take some this way but the tip has cameras for monitoring traffic and if they see the same vehicle, van or car regulary you would be caught out pretty quick and charged as a trade customer :-(
Probably get the environment agency on your case as well if you didnt have your carriers licence in order!
I never mulch as everyone has a bin plus as often as not the bins are also adequate to accommodate the average hedge trim.
If and when I need to use a commercial dump for clean green waste the cost is £14.50 for 500 kg at one dump and £28.75 for 1000kg at another dump. I use the appropriate dump according to the weight I think I have in each load. Both dumps are within the city.
I must say after reading various posts on this site since i have been a member I can count myself very lucky. I travel a maximum of 4 miles a day visiting 10 to 12 customers and do not have to worry about transporting waste and its associated costs.
Better to be born lucky than rich. Sadly I have no experience of the latter.
This would definately be my preferred way of dealing with waste but currently have no where to put a skip on a permanent basis, plus i would be looking more at £120 plus vat for said same skip. Unfortunately where i am based (north west kent - south east london border) most of my clients expect the waste to be removed as a matter of course, the majority are only medium size gardens so this is perfectly understandable as they only have the room for a basic plastic compost bin.