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Due to the warm weather and amount of rain this year, we had to start cutting mid Feb as the grass was getting too long. (stopped in mid December). We have been cutting fortnightly since!
did a couple of lawns on monday which was dry enough here in the east midlands, on the smaller lawns I use the bosch 43li cordless mower as it is so light weight so doesn't dig in or leave wheel marks, there also seems to be a lot of moss in the lawns at the moment due to the wet mild winter
Id second that about the moss, I've never seen this amount of moss on lawns, its taken over.
Grass cutting is kn@ckered now around here until at least next week after all that rainfall..i hate cutting it when more than slightly wet. Been using the combo of the 2 bosch cordless mowers and it has worked well on the first cuts of the season.. the GRA 53 is a surprisingly heavy beast so am setting the cut height a notch higher than I may do later in the season, it copes very well with the tough over wintered grass and leaves a good finish, it only lacks the ability to leave stripes. I did the main part of a customers lawn with it on monday which has several areas and levels and is expected to be cut fairly short and to an exemplary standard. After about an hour of intensive use the obligatory cup of tea,biscuits and cheque was brought out by the client so I utilised this natural break point to eject the 2 batteries which had worn down to 20% capacity, and plugged the 2 "ghostbusters design" rapid chargers into the power in their garage. I then whipped round with the bosch 43li mower, the new model with the syneon chip, which gives an extended run time from the 36v batteries I already own (some several years old now). It also seems less prone to the blade stalling under a sudden heavy load than the old model. This is designed as a domestic machine but is ideal for the steep banked areas of the lawn, around fruit trees and the edges of flower beds etc which you cannot get close enough to with the other mowers as you need to hang it over the edge, its rear roller assists this.Grabbing a gob full of tea as I went past the mug as the weather was threatening hail by this time... After 30minutes the two 6Ah batteries had finished charging, so I completed the lawn cutting with the big bosch mower. On the truck, and gone. The job was completed as quickly as when I use the petrol mowers, need another set of batteries for the Bosch GRA53 as under real world conditions they don't last very long, but it really is equivalent to a petrol mower in performance and actually nicer to use in a way, just no good for all day, every day, grass cutting unless you have a few grands worth of batteries or 1 of the special recharging powerbanks
I have a lighter petrol mower that I will use just to get the first cuts done. Hopefully the weather is improving according to the forecast. I carry two mowers in the van when I do garden maintenance. Also I have made sure the mower blades are nice and sharp.
yes each mower does the same thing slightly differently..horses for courses when one is out on a job..its almost as though particular lawns get accustomed to a certain machine..at the moment it's really a case of choosing the window of opportunity carefully.. if the weather stays cold and nasty it could be after easter before I am getting the second cut in
hi John, this is my first season of attempting to go fully cordless, I do have 3 new-ish petrol mowers but where possible I will be using cordless only, luckily my jobs are mostly whole garden maintenance so the actual lawn cutting element is just part of the equation, I have been using the bosch 43li rotak cordless models for around 7 years in conjunction with petrol mowers, I have been very impressed in their capacity for abuse so have bought the latest model of this, and then a bosch gra 53 professional mower, chargers and batteries presented at the right price (as I think there has been little interest in this country at least), it works for me as a top end priced mainly domestic maintenance gardener but may not suit the amenity landscape trade etc, not sure of the weight but, bl00dy heavy, first mower that ive had to use the ramps for to get it on the pickup truck lol
apparently bosch are bringing out a 9.0Ah battery soon, goodness knows how much these will cost lol, especially considering you really need 2 of them side by side, in use they are depleted at the same rate, these should give an hour and a half's hard lawn cutting or 2 hours lighter cutting, yes there is some investment with the batteries but they should last for years, they seem to have an inbuilt motion sensor and know which way up they are held, modifying the orientation of the display accordingly, its also a nice feature that they will advise of how many times they have ever been charged, which would make buying second hand easier further down the line
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