Disclaimer: I'm a yard-nerd, love to mow grass.

 

** Curious to know how you started, and what you are doing these days for turf / lawn care? **

 

Growing up: Lawn Boy Brick-top, then a Lawn boy 7268, both were 2-stroke mowers. Had an old Wheel Horse as well. Dad would not let me on the riding mower until I pushed the front and back yards with the Lawn Boy (great Jedi-mind-trick!)

 

 

On my own: Had a Craftsman riding mower...didn't last long...then got in to a John Deere 445 (loved that mower!). Moved to the city, sold the 445 and got another 7268 Lawn Boy, and a Lawn Boy 10797 4 stroke. 

 

 

Today: Moved back an acreage 7 years ago, found a John Deere x750 used, 60" deck. Picked up 54" snow blower the next summer. The last pictures includes a John Deere D125 I picked up last night...Nephew moving in to my Dad's house and needs a riding mower. 

 

 

Still have two Lawn Boy 7268's and the 10797 as well. 

 

What's your lawn care story?

 

 

 

I couldn’t tell you, I pay a lawn guy. Last mower I bought was at Lowe’s, one of their Kobalt battery powered mowers. We had a 1/4 acre lot. I left it with the house when my ex and I divorced. I can appreciate a nice lawn and ours looks great, no credit to me. I hate mowing and yard work in general. New house is on three acres.

I'll be honest.  I've been getting a little behind on my mowing this year.  😆

I try to keep my property looking respectable. I think it adds property value and curb appeal.

 

My yard isn’t big enough for a rider. I use a self propelled version. In late June, I bought a Toro Recycler. It obliterates the grass into small pieces with its vortex technology. Bought it $70 off and it came with free assembly.

I sold my old mower which was 10 years old quickly for 75 bucks too.

 

I find mowing and yard work in general to be very therapeutic. I put some headphones on and go to work.

 

I worked on a lawn crew all thru college and a little bit afterwards, we had exmark 60 inch zero turns. Now I have a 20” push mower 😂 

 

 

got lucky at the house I bought, it’s zoysia grass. I don’t do anything to it but cut it, and it looks great in summer. Completely yellow after Halloween until may but I don’t care 

1 hour ago, gim said:

I try to keep my property looking respectable. I think it adds property value and curb appeal.

 

My yard isn’t big enough for a rider. I use a self propelled version. In late June, I bought a Toro Recycler. It obliterates the grass into small pieces with its vortex technology. Bought it $70 off and it came with free assembly.

I sold my old mower which was 10 years old quickly for 75 bucks too.

 

I find mowing and yard work in general to be very therapeutic. I put some headphones and go to work.

 

 

 

Looks good @gim! Those new Toro Recyclers are sweet! 

 

Agree, yardwork therapeutic. After dealing with people all day, it's just ear-plugs for me...and silence...and the hum of the little Yanmar diesel. Our place is 2.6 acres total. Takes me about two hours to mow and weed-eat. 

 

Don't have any sprinklers to deal with...this is the best our property has looked in the 7 years we have been here. Eastern Nebraska has been above average rainfall all year. Normally this time of year it's all brown and crunchy.

 

Right now I'm mowing every 4 days and may switch to ever 3(!)

 

 

1 minute ago, DaubsNU1 said:

Eastern Nebraska has been above average rainfall all year. Normally this time of year it's all brown and crunchy.

 

Right now I'm mowing every 4 days and may switch to ever 3(!)

We’re way above for moisture too. They are expecting record crop harvests this fall because of it.

 

I mow mine about every 4 or 5 days. If I wait a week, it’s a hayfield.

Started with some push mower, graduated to a 42" Murray rider, and now I fly a John Deere Z920A.

View from the pilots seat.😁

I’ve neglected my lawn recently. Started a new job doing overnight 12 hour shifts and I just haven’t had the gumption to mow in a couple weeks now. Luckily it isn’t too bad, most of it is fine and only a couple high spots. Hopefully the cold nights that have started here will help me out even more. 
 

I got rid of my big mower, now I just use a 21” Toro self-propelled pusher. Easy to maintain and I can throw it right in the bed of the truck without having to worry about the trailer. 

Time I would rather spend doing something else. Cut it short in June so it turns brown, then I just have to mow the weeds once or twice until it greens up again in September.

The house I bought back in 2020 has a 1.5 acre yard. Thought it was great when we looked at and got the house now I wish the yard wasn’t so big we don’t use it for anything but to keep me busy when I have free time……

 

when we first moved in we had a old rider so it wasn’t to bad then the kids wanted to mow so figured sure why not. Ruined the mower kept breaking belts and hitting stuff. Ended up scraping the rider second year here soon as we needed it. Been pushing mowing 1.5 acres since till this past Father’s Day I treated myself to a craftsman t2200k rider with bagger. No one’s allowed to mow but me with it for now anyways. 
 

this thread reminds me also I need to

mow today before the kids football games. What used to be a 4-5 hr job with the push mower is now a 45min- hour with the rider depending if I do the front and back or just one 

John Deere S240.  Great little rider.  More than capable of shredding a 100' contractor grade garden hose.

When my grandfather built my house, he determined that yardwork ate too much into his time, and covered 90% of the yard in concrete. It took me years to realize that the man was a visionary.

I have about a half acre yard that I mow with a 22” deck push mower about once a week, almost year round. Weedeating, edging and mowing takes me just under 2 hours. 90% of the time I love doing it. I also love maintaining the weedeater and the mower.

I’m not sure if I’m serious or not…

 

These will make you appreciate any kind you have.
Even now when I see one I cringe 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

4 minutes ago, Mike L said:

These will make appreciate any kind you have.
Even now when I see one I cringe

I used one of those in my early teens on our lawn.

 

Now-days....no idea....my neighbor takes care of the lawn for me in partial exchange of me letting him park his two trailers and his old Explorer with Collectors Plates on it in my back yard...he doesn't have the parking space in his yard.

I got flamed 🔥 pretty good several years ago on a similar thread 😂.

Even though I'd consider myself energetic and like to stay busy,

Mowing is not a high priority.

Live 1/2 mile off a state maintained road on a dead end.

Amazon and UPS drivers are the only ones who sees the yard.

Soooo, I only mow and weed eat once per month.

Years ago I manicured the 3 acres of forest I own to look like a park.  It took me 3 years of work to get it cleaned up and the saplings kut.  I had an 18 horse lawn tractor and I kept it really nice.  Then the job put me on the road a lot more and I decided to let it go natural.  That left me with about 1 acre around the house to maintain.  When we first moved in we had it professionally landscaped and that included all new plantings and sod in the front and seed in the side yard.  After about 5 years, the rain stripped the sod away even tough it was on mesh and after continued seedlings it just never took.  A tree guy stopped in one day and told me that there’s no way I would ever have a front yard without watering every day because I have a huge sugar maple that per him drinks about 150 gallons a day in water during the summer months.  I thought about taking it out but it shades the house well in the summer, keeping our ac bills down.  I sold the tractor and now have a lawn guy come and kick up dust every 2 weeks.  😂

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

I have a huge sugar maple

Should tap that every so often and make maple syrup.

We bought our house in late 2019 and a guy was contracted to cut it for that year. We made a plan for the following year of what I wanted and what we would do. He sold the business that winter and the plan didn’t make it to the new guys. They cut but didn’t treat anything or apply

anything. By the end of the year the yard was a mess. I told him what I wanted for the following year and they did stuff but it never looked like what I wanted. That summer I had weeds out the wazoo and kept asking for treatment (I said I had crabgrass).  He don’t believe me until he came out himself to look and it was a mess. Said he’d send his guy who was a ‘specialist’. Two months later he showed up. I still had the weeds. He put down Scott’s 3 in 1 which (while a good product generally) didn’t touch the weeds I had. That’s when I took matters into my own hands and got knowledgeable about grass.

 

I learned that what I was calling crabgrass is actually stiltweed and a real pain in a lawn. I got my irrigation running and tuned up to what is should be. I started learning and then treating the various weeds (and there were a bunch of different ones. Then through the process of building our outdoor kitchen I had to completely renovate the dog yard. That really got me down a path of wanting and having nice grass to the point that I then renovated the pool yard too with 100% rye and cutting it at an inch every three to four days with a manual reel mower. Other areas have slowly improved as well

without a complete redo. 
 

today was the first big lawn day for me. I replaced a couple sprinkler heads. Filled a couple dog dug holes. Raked a few dead patches that burnt out.  Fall preemergent on the side yard (which doesn’t get a whole lot of love from me).  I’m about ready to start dropping seed but that means a slit seeder rental for what I need to do, seed, top dress, and then spraying preeemrgent so a lot of work. But I’m almost at steady state where I can get into maintenance mode and not improve mode. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Mike L- I have a modern version of a manual reel mower. That’s what I used last year to cut 1200 sqft of the pool yard area to 1” or so. Every 3-4 days. That’s what most of the pictures are of above. When I redid the dog yard that’s what I used for the first two months while it was still growing in. I also used it to make a lawn games path in the dog yard last Fourth of July hence the flags and tape measure. 

@casts_by_fly

Really looks great!

The amount of work you did is really noticeable 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

I have an Exmark 60" zero turn to cut our grass and pastures.  Great mower.  I've put over 1,500 hours on it since I bought it 12 years ago.  The heat, rain and really high humidity has the grass and weeds growing like crazy this year.  Feels like I'm constantly cutting grass.

19 hours ago, Mike L said:

 

These will make appreciate any kind you have.
Even now when I see one I cringe 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

Years and years ago my mom had to have one of these.  It sat in the shed unused until about 10 years ago when the motor on my old Lawnboy died.  When we had a yard sale this thing was the first to go.

17 hours ago, Mike L said:

@casts_by_fly

Really looks great!

The amount of work you did is really noticeable 

 

Mike

 

Thanks!

 

This is what the Pool and front yard looked like before I started anything.  The pool yard had a 4” drop from the concrete to the soil from settling and erosion over 15 years.  I wheelbarrowed a dump truck load of topsoil (about 75 loads wheeled 50 yards) to level it first and then planted it.  

 

 

 

 

And then all of the work at the start of the dog yard.  It was pure dirt after the construction so it was a blank slate spring 2023.

 

 

 

 

Since @Mike L brought it up, I’ve come full circle. As a little kid, a big treat was visiting my grandma’s house and getting to cut her tiny yard with her reel mower. It’s now well over 50 years later, I’m retired in a community that does all the lawn cutting, trimming, edging and fertilization as part of our HOA dues. But, since the heat can be so bad down here limiting my fishing, and budgets are also limited, I took an early interest in yard maintenance. Since we have Bermuda, I finally bit the bullet and bought a reel mower, and have been doing extra cutting, fertilizing and weed control 😎