1 hour ago, Team9nine said:

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 😎
 

 

I didn’t even know they still made those things, even has a roller!

Very fancy 

My grandma made me cut her grass every summer with one of those. 
To this day I refuse to do it, one of the few luxuries I allow myself!

Have Fun

😃

 

 

 

Mike

12 minutes ago, Mike L said:

I didn’t even know they still made those things, even has a roller!

Ya - Home Depot even has them in stock in some stores....and 'Scotts' even - not a no-name brand.

3 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Ya - Home Depot even has them in stock in some stores....and 'Scotts' even - not a no-name brand.

Exactly - where I got mine 😉

I've never seen one in person in my lifetime.  Let's just say those things are old than I am.

As a kid we had a gas reel type, had to wrap the pull rope around the spool to get it running. It was power driven and would eat anything it ran into, you had to push down on the back to lift the drive wheels so you could drag it backwards. I tried looking for pics but didn’t turn up anything.

 

 Used a manual reel when we lived in Omaha, the yard was less then a 1/4 acre.

 

60 years later I use a Bad Boy ZT, I actually enjoy cutting the lawn again.

 

i used to be pretty anal about a green weed free lawn, then the town started banning water use every summer so I gave up. A guy down the street tried having a well put in so he could water, no luck.

14 hours ago, Bankbeater said:

...when the motor on my old Lawnboy died...

 

LawnBoy died? Say it isn't so!!

 

I cannot remember why Dad's old brick-top LawnBoy was put out of service. I think I broke the pull rope and he wanted something newer.  

 

When I was in middle school my brother was mowing a yard in the neighborhood to make some cash...ran out of fuel...and a neighbor graciously offered up some gasoline. 

 

Yep, you guessed it...straight gasoline...not 2-stroke mix. The mower gradually slowed down and stopped. UGH!

 

He brought it home and explained...Dad knew immediately(!). Completely siezed. 

 

Thankfully a close neighbor ran a garden and turf shop...and their son had been to "LawnBoy school" (yep, there was such a thing back then). 

 

He bored out the cylinder, replaced the piston and had it running in no time.

 

Those old 2-stroke LawnBoys are like tanks! My 7268 was built in 1979-81 range...still going strong!

No pics, but I too believe cutting my yard is cathartic. I’m a thick, plush lawn guy. Two doors down from me, guy cuts his yard with a reel mower. His yard looks good. I cut my yard on the next to highest setting and my yard is thick and plush. I have spots where I need to level the yard out, but all in all, it looks good to me. Mow it every Wednesday. Edge, weed eat, mow. I usually mow my grass twice in opposite directions, most often in a 45 degree angle to my sidewalks. Then everyone in the neighborhood started cutting at an angle. 
 

I was an early adopter of Ego Power. I have a 21” self propelled along with trimmer, edger and blower. The batteries need to be replaced as they’ve lost their get up and go. 
 

@casts_by_fly - my yard guy kept trying to kill my crabgrass. After I finally got him to realize it wasn’t crabgrass, but was instead dallisgrass. Once that was realized, no more problems. 

1 hour ago, Smirak said:

I usually mow my grass twice in opposite directions, most often in a 45 degree angle to my sidewalks. Then everyone in the neighborhood started cutting at an angle. 
 

I was an early adopter of Ego Power. I have a 21” self propelled along with trimmer, edger and blower. The batteries need to be replaced as they’ve lost their get up and go. 
 

@casts_by_fly - my yard guy kept trying to kill my crabgrass. After I finally got him to realize it wasn’t crabgrass, but was instead dallisgrass. Once that was realized, no more problems. 

 

I also like to mow in different directions. I've even tried some patterns in the yard -- the wavy line didn't look so good...but I have done a circle...picked out a tree in the yard, and simply run a circle around, getting bigger and bigger with each pass. Looked pretty cool. But my preference is trying to get arrow-straight lines, or mimic the outfield of a baseball park. 

 

As a kid I remember the first corded grass trimmers / weed eaters. I remember a hand held battery version...but didn't last long. Dad quickly got a gas trimmer. Those Ego Power units look nice. 

 

The x750 runs a three cylinder Yanmar diesel. I've read they typically will run up to around 4,000 hours before needing an overhaul. I purchased with 79 hours on the clock...and after 7 years of mowing and snow-blowing, I have ~360 hours. Should last my lifetime...and kids lifetime as well : ) 

 

I am pretty sure my lawn is full of crabgrass and dallisgrass, but with 2.5+ acres, Neighbor has a lawn guy come spray...his yard is just under 2 acres...I think he's paying $300 per application...three times a year(?). His lawn looks pretty darn good. 

 

 

On 8/24/2025 at 1:42 PM, Team9nine said:

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 😎
 

 

The first mower I ever used as a kid. Luckily my grandpa was good at keeping it sharp. Ours was a heavy old wooden handle one. It was a workout.

It’s a real pain in the neck to mow around all the broke down cars in my yard, so I let the goats do it. 

I bought an EGO zero turn mower. It was too much for me. I begged the local hardware store to return it and they let me. I traded for an EGO rider with a steering wheel and I love it.  

Did maintenance | tune-up on the D125 last night -- oil & filter, fuel filter, air filter, plugs. Pretty simple...and the kit was only $55. I just need to sharpen the blades and it's ready to mow!

 

Pretty solid riding mower. Should serve Nephew well for the next 2-3 years.

 

 

I finished the bulk of my lawn work for the year today.  I started Thursday and did a bit here at there.  The dog yard needed an overseed in the heavy traffic areas that they tore up last winter.  I was going to manually rake all of the patches and hard dirt to scarify it, but there was a lot so I was going to rent a scarifier.  But the rental cost was 2/3 the price of what I could buy so I just bought an inexpensive one that will last a couple years.  It saved a TON of time and work so I used it elsewhere too.  I got down seed, topsoil, and straw in the dog yard.  Then out front I’ve been trying to get a patch under the trees to grow grass for a while now.  It is pretty much full shade in the summer so I’ve lifted the canopy by trimming all branches less than 20’ above the ground.  I did some clearing, scarify, seed, and straw with a deep shade blend.  Hopefully I can get it to take and not just be hard dirt that washes away with rain.  Lastly, I did the pool yard today also.  I needed a patch seeding where the dogs get out of the pool and make a swamp.  There were a couple small patches as well.  Moreso, while the grass looked good from afar, when you dug into it the turf needed some better stem density.  So while my grass guys have been cutting it around 2.5” this year, I dug the manual reel mower out and cut it down to 1” which scalped down into the crowns in a lot of it.  That will let the seed get down into the soil more easily.  So it got patch seeding and then a good overseed with some topsoil and leveling with what I had left in the truck.  In two weeks the existing grass should be back to its 2.5” range and the new seed should be about 1” long.  it should look pretty good then and awesome by the end of the month.  A good soaking rain would be nice for all of it, but the sprinklers will have to do for now.  

 

So the seed is in the ground.  Now I just have to have some patience and let it grow.  I’ll need to feed all of it in a couple weeks and then a month later.  I’ve got preemergent down in the areas not being seeded.  All the sprinkler heads are adjusted and repaired.  So all in now it is just let it grow and enjoy it.  

 

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I had bought a new Toro Recycler in June.  It came with a bagger, but I have not used that yet.  I primarily have that for leaves in the fall.

 

The other day, I laid the bagger in my boat so it was out of the way.

 

When I left to go fishing, I forgot to take it out.  Of course it blew out on the road about 1/2 mile from my house.  I realized what I had done when I got to the access 30 minutes away.  I called my wife and she went to go try and find it.

 

Well, she found it.  But unfortunately someone musta ran it over.  It's completely destroyed.  I'm gonna call Toro tomorrow and see if they will replace it.

 

This occurred 2 days ago and it's still bothering me.

 

 

I’ve been using a Toro “Super Recyler” with the Honda motor. I’m not a big fan of their Personal Pace self propelled system.  I’m not very concerned about having a golf course quality lawn, but I do want it reasonably good. I’ve got a guy who fertilizes and applies weed control. In the last two years, we had a lot of what I think are voles that made shallow tunnels just under the surface. Once we got rid of the grubs, the voles went away but their tunnels started collapsing and made a sizable chunk of yard very bumpy. A few days ago, I had a guy come out to help me get it smooth again. He used 3 yards of compost and spread it out on the bad areas. Our soil is already very sandy so we didn’t want more sand and I thought compost would provide better nutrients. Unfortunately, the compost was loaded with small sticks, pieces of wood and rocks. I’ve been picking out those bits for 3 days now. The lawn is a lot smoother but will look pretty bad until the grass underneath starts to poke through. I hoping any small rocks I missed picking up will find their way deep enough that I don’t wreck the blade on the mower. 

I contacted Toro about the wrecked bagger.

 

They are sending me a brand new frame and bagger free of charge.

 

Toro might have a new customer for life.

@gim in my opinion, Toro is so far ahead of the other mower manufacturers with quality and customer service. Toro and Troy-Bilt are the only brands I consider now. 

25 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

in my opinion, Toro is so far ahead of the other mower manufacturers with quality and customer service.

 

It's hard to find companies that go out of their way for customer service these days.  Especially big ones with publicly traded stock.

 

The mower itself has been flawless thus far and I've used it about every 5 days since last June.  It obliterates the grass.

 

A bigger test lies ahead though: mulching leaves.

Not quite 5 full days after seed down in the dog yard and my TTTF is already well germinated.  Pic below was yesterday morning.  It is almost an inch now, less than a week after seed down. if it can keep up at this rate I’ll need to cut it this week.

 

I received my new bag and frame today from Toro.

 

$110 value, plus $15 for shipping.  No charge.

9 hours ago, gim said:

I received my new bag and frame today from Toro.

 

$110 value, plus $15 for shipping.  No charge.

 

That right there is outstanding customer service! 

This is the downside of using straw as your seed covering.  It’s a grass too and wants to germinate in the perfect growing conditions you’ve created.  I’ll deal with it because I have to have the straw for the dogs and to keep my house from being a mudball, but it will be annoying to pull them all over the next couple weeks.  This is just after a week that the straw seed heads have germinated and developed 2” roots.  

 

When I bought my home in 1988 I was thrilled with my front and back yards.  We had a beautiful spruce in the front, hemlock on the east side, two spruce and two cedars in the back.  I worked my tail off to make the lawn nice, planted an apple tree and 37 ferns.  Trees grow.  I’ve had to take out all but the cedars and apple.  Stumps were ground and all my bordering neighbors don’t do squat to their yards so clover and other noxious weeds make having a healthy lawn. Grand children play so I mow, water and fertilize once a year.  My park is gone but the memories are still fresh.

Crab grass has exploded in my front yard, i started in august taking a pitch fork and up rooting the big patches, then on my hands and knees and a garden trowell cut out smaller patches. From what i learned from reading is that the crabgrass dies off in the fall but the seeds it dropped will be back just as before.

 

I also walk the yard and dig out all the dandelions, i spotted a few this week and along with the dandelions the mosquitoes were attacking me by the hundreds.

If I removed all the crab grass in my yard, I would not have a yard. I would just have dirt and rocks. The soil where I live (on a hill in the woods) is about 1" of poor acidic topsoil and then hardpan clay or bedrock. To grow anything but weeds and crab grass I would have to import tons of good topsoil. I do not have the budget or interest to do that. Besides, the weeds...mostly dandelion and such....are great for the bees and other pollinators. And I actually line the looks of dandelions.