Riding Lawn Mowers

If you've a large garden, you may wish to make your lawn mowing chore easier by getting a riding lawnmower. If your garden is over about 1440 square yards (1200 square metres), then that's usually considered as being about the limit when a riding mower is a necessity, beneath that it may be helpful, but an ordinary walk-behind mower could still do the job.

Buying a riding mower requires a little more thought though than simply replacing the existing mower:

Where are you going to store the mower? By their nature, even if your riding is a replacement for a large ordinary walk-behind mower, it will be considerably larger. Make sure you have the space and also the access in and out.

Security. riding mowers are expensive and unfortunately attract the unsavoury elements in society, so make sure that wherever you store it is safe and locked properly. Difficulty in access from the outside road is a plus point too.

Lawn shape, flower beds etc. Riding mowers will have a fairly large turning circle. Modern machines have this as small as possible of course and most models are almost ridiculously manoeuvrable. Even so, they will not be as easy to get into small awkward shapes that you may have been able to do previously with a walk-behind model.

Off set cutting deck - this means that the cutting deck is not directly below the centre of the mower and will overhang the tyres by a small amount. Practically, it means that the mower can cut over the edge of the lawn without falling into the beds and borders.

These lawn mowers are sometimes called Lawn Tractors and it is possible to buy trailers that they can be used to tow heavy or bulky items around the garden.