Cylinder and rotary mowers do the same job in two completely different ways, and the difference decides which one will give you the lawn you want. A cylinder mower shears each blade of grass like a pair of scissors, producing…
A broken, crumbling lawn edge makes the whole garden look unkempt, but you almost never need to buy turf to fix it. The professional trick is to use the grass you already have: cut out the damaged strip, lift it,…
Epsom salt is one of the most repeated lawn hacks on the internet, usually sold with a promise of a deep green lawn in days for the price of a bag from the chemist. Here is the honest version: Epsom…
If pale, star-shaped clumps of coarse grass are flattening out across your lawn this month, you are almost certainly looking at crabgrass. The single most useful thing to know is that timing decides everything: a young plant with one or…
A petrol mower that starts fine, runs for ten or twenty minutes and then dies on a hot day, only to restart once it has cooled, is showing one of the most recognisable faults in small engines. The cause is…
You can keep a lawn largely weed-free without spreading anything that forces you to fence off the garden from children and pets for days. The safest approach is also the most effective long term: pull or spot-treat the weeds you…
A mower blade is a wear part, not a permanent fixture, and there comes a point where no amount of sharpening will bring it back. Keep grinding a blade past that point and you are mowing with a thin, unbalanced…
The first cut of a lawn grown from seed is the moment most new lawns are either made or ruined. Cut too early, too low, or with a blunt blade on soft ground, and you can rip seedlings clean out…
The single most useful thing you can do with a season of grass clippings is stop throwing them in the bin and start turning them into compost. A summer lawn the size of two parking bays produces enough clippings to…
For a small lawn, the mower that makes the most sense is often the one the gardening world has quietly moved on from: the corded electric. While attention has shifted to cordless batteries and robot mowers, a plug-in mower still…
