A mower that fires on the pull then dies within a few seconds is almost always starved of clean fuel, not short of a spark. The usual culprit is stale petrol that has turned to gum inside the carburettor, with…
A light scatter of leaves does little harm, but a wet mat left sitting for more than a week or two blocks the light from the grass and traps damp against it, and the blades underneath start to yellow and…
The weeds in your paving joints are not growing up through the slabs, they are rooting in the grit and dirt that has collected in the gaps, which is why pulling the tops off never works for long. A paving…
A mower that buzzes and rattles through the handles almost always has a blade fault: bent, cracked, or thrown out of balance by uneven sharpening, not a worn-out engine. You can find and fix it at home in under an…
Thatch is the spongy brown layer of dead stems, old roots and flattened moss that builds up between the green grass and the soil, and a thin layer of it is normal and even useful. Scarifying rakes that layer out…
Hard, compacted ground starves grass roots of the air and water they need, which is why a worn lawn thins out, puddles after rain and limps through the colder months. Pushing a fork or a hollow tine tool through the…
A strong smell of petrol and an engine that cranks but will not catch almost always means the cylinder is flooded, not that the mower is broken. Stop pulling the cord, as every extra pull floods it further; take the…
Yarrow creeps through a lawn on underground stems and shrugs off close mowing, so cutting it or pulling the tops only leaves the roots to grow straight back. Raking each patch upright before you mow, lifting the roots out to…
The figure that clears a lawn of leaves fastest is air volume, how much air the blower actually shifts, not the headline air speed most buyers read first. Cordless models suit most lawns and run quieter and cleaner than petrol,…
Autumn is the best window of the whole year to lay new turf: the soil still holds summer warmth, rain does most of the watering for you, and the roots knit in before winter so the lawn is ready to…
