A mower pull cord that has gone solid, or that pulls out a few centimetres and jams, almost never means the engine is finished. In most cases the cause is one of a short list of problems you can check…
Watering your lawn after dinner feels sensible. The air is cool, the sun has gone, and less water seems to vanish into the sky. The problem is what happens to the grass for the next eight to twelve hours. An…
If a low, sprawling weed with three small leaves and tight clusters of bright yellow flowers has started creeping across the thin, dry parts of your lawn this summer, the plant is almost certainly black medic, and its arrival is…
Small, round, straw-coloured spots scattered across a summer lawn, each roughly the size of a coin and sometimes joining into bigger bleached patches, are most often the lawn disease called dollar spot. It is a fungus, it loves exactly the…
A thin ribbon of standing grass left behind on every pass is one of the most irritating mower faults, partly because it looks like the machine is mocking you. The fix is usually quick once you know which of a…
A thick crust of dried grass under your mower deck is not just untidy, it quietly wrecks the quality of your cut. The deck is shaped to create a controlled airflow that lifts each blade of grass upright a fraction…
The fastest way to stop dog urine ruining your lawn is also the cheapest: keep a watering can by the back door and flush the spot within a few hours of your dog using it. That single habit dilutes the…
If you have ever raked away a ring of toadstools, scraped off the dead grass, and watched the same dark circle return a few weeks later, the problem is not your effort. It is where the fungus actually lives. A…
A mower that suddenly shakes, buzzes through the handles or rattles louder than usual is trying to tell you something, and the message is almost always the same: something is spinning out of balance. In the great majority of cases…
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…
