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June 16, 2008
The plants between the flagstones of our garden path are now short. That is because I mow them regularly. We finally decided to go with the cordless electric mower. We purchased a Homelite 20" Cordless Electric Mower from the Home Despot. It is not my favorite place to do business, but I was nervous about the purchase of this relatively new technology and I wanted to be able to return it more easily if something goes wrong.
So far there have been no problems. I brought it home and plugged it in to get it charging. The next day I took it for a spin around the path. As expected, it started right up. Despite what all the marketing materials say about electric mowers, this thing is not whisper quiet! It sounds like a very loud fan. It is certainly quieter than a gas mower, but still difficult to talk over. The best thing is that there is no yanking on a pull cord and there are no exhaust fumes.
But back to the cutting... I set the height at about 3.25" so that I can clear my rather bumpy stone path. I also like the way it lets the plants grow in between the stones, albeit in a dwarfed stature. I pushed it around the path and found that it takes two passes to cut the full width. Apparently the path is wider than the 20" cutting width of the mower. I think that the electric mower feels heavier than my old gas mower, but it is on wheels, so I don't have too much trouble pushing it. The exercise is good for me anyway.
The whole job of trimming all of the path winding through Native Suburbia takes less than 10 minutes. I do it about once a week and after 3 or 4 times I am still on the first charge. Of course my "mileage" is probably much better than that reported in the typical online reviews because I am not cutting a thick lawn. The path trimming job is a whole different chore. It remains to be seen how this electric mower will stand up to the spring mulching job.