My new toy

[TrimTheKing]

A bit of an extravagance (I’m selling unused clutter to finance it) but I’m buying back time which is my most valuable asset.

GPS control around the pond, nervy moments following it…

I’ve only had it for a day so only mapped one of the three areas of grass we have, so I’ll be doing the rest this week and tweaking the settings, but delighted with it so far.

 

[Cabinetman]

Does it collect the cuttings as well? I imagine that would be asking a bit much probably. How does it know when the grass needs cutting?
Staying with somebody at the mo who has a robot hoover which when it’s finished it goes back to its charging station for a bit off r and r lol. I think your lawnmower is a much better idea than the sweeper/hoover which is a bit of a joke tbh. Looks like a lovely garden.
Ian

 

[TrimTheKing]

Does it collect the cuttings as well? I imagine that would be asking a bit much probably. How does it know when the grass needs cutting?
Staying with somebody at the mo who has a robot hoover which when it’s finished it goes back to its charging station for a bit off r and r lol. I think your lawnmower is a much better idea than the sweeper/hoover which is a bit of a joke tbh. Looks like a lovely garden.
Ian

Hi Ian

No it mulches so basically you bring the grass down to whatever you want you grass height with your normal mower for the first cut of the year, then you have already mapped your lawn/s and you schedule this to cut at whatever height/cut pattern/frequency you want and it just does it’s thing. This can cut anywhere between 25-70mm.

All I need to do is clear the dog crap every morning.

When this is properly set up, which I’ll do this week, there will be three lawns/zones, and it will cut two of them one day, the other the next, then it’s scheduled to do each set every other day.

By doing that it is only lopping off the top couple of mm every day and mulching it. That way you don’t end up with a build up of thatch, the grass will/should grow thicker because it’s getting a trim every other day.

I’ll give you an update at the end of summer…

 

[Mike G]

I was at a large restaurant set in its own grounds somewhere in Spain last year when I first saw these things in action. They had three of them on the go. They are disconcertingly random in their movements...there was no hint of out-in-a-straight-line-then back-in-a-straight-line. They just wandered about seemingly meaninglessly. The fun came, though, when they crossed path with each other. Something allowed them to sense the presence of others, and there were no collisions, unfortunately. They took so little off that it was impossible to tell where they'd been, and where they'd not been. I guess that's the point.......it's not one big trim once or twice a week, it's a constant shaving process, taking off infinitesimal amounts constantly.

 

[akirk]

I suppose it is the robot equivalent of having sheep wandering around - with less death wish, but not quite as tasty.

 

[Mike]

When this is properly set up, which I’ll do this week, there will be three lawns/zones, and it will cut two of them one day, the other the next, then it’s scheduled to do each set every other day.

By doing that it is only lopping off the top couple of mm every day and mulching it. That way you don’t end up with a build up of thatch, the grass will/should grow thicker because it’s getting a trim every other day.

Based on my experience, frequent topping of the lawn is one of the keys to thick healthy grass. I used to wait until the lawn was nearing the height for a bush hog and then lop off about 3/4 of the length in one pass after I got home from work. The lawn was never as nice as I thought it should be and it was due to wrong cutting height, cutting at the wrong time of day, and watering at the wrong time of day (in-ground irrigation system fed by a well).

Last May, I decided I was going to perform an aggressive renovation and essentially start over. This included deep scarification, plug aeration, overseeding, top dressing, and frequent watering for the first six weeks. For inspiration and guidance, I followed the instructions from Shaun's YouTube channel LawnRight Lawn Care. Resources for homeowner lawn care in Germany nearly doesn't exist.

For the first two weeks, my lawn looked like the surface of the moon, with a bit of green fuzz. However, by the sixth week, it was ready for the first mow and looked great. After a lot of initial hard work, my lawn has never looked better, and I was mowing it in December and early January. The growth slowed down a bit, but picked up again in late March.

My process during the growing season includes:
1. Irrigate the lawn and flower beds for an hour at least twice a week at 0600. My Hunter irrigation system accounts for rain and extreme heat and will adjust the run time for each zone accordingly. Watering in the evening is a recipe for fungus since the leaves will be wet during the night. The distribution and selection of sprinkler heads ensures the lawn receives the correct amount of water at a rate that can be absorbed by the soil.
2. Cut the tops of the leaves three times a week no later than 1000. This gives the grass the rest of the day to recover from the minor stress of cutting. Cutting in the evening does not allow the plant to recover with the available sunlight.
3. Find the optimum height for the mix of grass, which in my case is about two inches. My lawn is a blend of 60-percent tall fescue, 20-percent ryegrass, and 20-percent Kentucky bluegrass.
4. Spoon feed the lawn after every mowing with 500ml of seaweed extract and 400g of water soluble urea (46-0-0) tank mixed in 11 liters of water in my backpack sprayer. This allows me to make two passes over the 176 square meter lawn and ensures an even distribution. Let the sprinkler run ten minutes to soak in the mixture.
5. Every four weeks, add 60ml of a humic acid and iron additive to the mix above.
6. Every four weeks, separately spray a wetting agent over the lawn and let the sprinkler system run for ten minutes. The wetting agent is expensive, but a little goes a long way and the effects are worth it.
7. Dethatch (scarify) in the Spring and Fall. Even with cutting just the tops, I can still fill a 120-liter bag with thatch, but this is nothing compared to the eleven 120-liter bags I removed in May.

This sounds like a lot of effort, and it was initially. However, I'm retired and working on my lawn pleases me as much as woodworking...maybe a bit more. After I established the rhythm, the mowing and feeding takes about 45 minutes from shed doors open to shed doors closed. This May, I'll do another minor renovation to apply the second dose of overseeding.

 

[Lurker]

Her majesty enjoys mowing the lawn, so one of those would be like Mrs Doyle’s teasmaid

 

[TrimTheKing]

I was at a large restaurant set in its own grounds somewhere in Spain last year when I first saw these things in action. They had three of them on the go. They are disconcertingly random in their movements...there was no hint of out-in-a-straight-line-then back-in-a-straight-line. They just wandered about seemingly meaninglessly. The fun came, though, when they crossed path with each other. Something allowed them to sense the presence of others, and there were no collisions, unfortunately. They took so little off that it was impossible to tell where they'd been, and where they'd not been. I guess that's the point.......it's not one big trim once or twice a week, it's a constant shaving process, taking off infinitesimal amounts constantly.

Not this one Mike. Those ones you saw are random and have a guide wire stopping them roaming, this is the next generation and has a GPS receiver on a pole and it can do all kinds of patterns and you can even import graphics for it to write messages or draw pictures in your lawn.

Watch the video above, mine is striping the lawn with a 3 point turn at the end of each stripe.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Based on my experience, frequent topping of the lawn is one of the keys to thick healthy grass. I used to wait until the lawn was nearing the height for a bush hog and then lop off about 3/4 of the length in one pass after I got home from work. The lawn was never as nice as I thought it should be and it was due to wrong cutting height, cutting at the wrong time of day, and watering at the wrong time of day (in-ground irrigation system fed by a well).

Last May, I decided I was going to perform an aggressive renovation and essentially start over. This included deep scarification, plug aeration, overseeding, top dressing, and frequent watering for the first six weeks. For inspiration and guidance, I followed the instructions from Shaun's YouTube channel LawnRight Lawn Care. Resources for homeowner lawn care in Germany nearly doesn't exist.

For the first two weeks, my lawn looked like the surface of the moon, with a bit of green fuzz. However, by the sixth week, it was ready for the first mow and looked great. After a lot of initial hard work, my lawn has never looked better, and I was mowing it in December and early January. The growth slowed down a bit, but picked up again in late March.

My process during the growing season includes:
1. Irrigate the lawn and flower beds for an hour at least twice a week at 0600. My Hunter irrigation system accounts for rain and extreme heat and will adjust the run time for each zone accordingly. Watering in the evening is a recipe for fungus since the leaves will be wet during the night. The distribution and selection of sprinkler heads ensures the lawn receives the correct amount of water at a rate that can be absorbed by the soil.
2. Cut the tops of the leaves three times a week no later than 1000. This gives the grass the rest of the day to recover from the minor stress of cutting. Cutting in the evening does not allow the plant to recover with the available sunlight.
3. Find the optimum height for the mix of grass, which in my case is about two inches. My lawn is a blend of 60-percent tall fescue, 20-percent ryegrass, and 20-percent Kentucky bluegrass.
4. Spoon feed the lawn after every mowing with 500ml of seaweed extract and 400g of water soluble urea (46-0-0) tank mixed in 11 liters of water in my backpack sprayer. This allows me to make two passes over the 176 square meter lawn and ensures an even distribution. Let the sprinkler run ten minutes to soak in the mixture.
5. Every four weeks, add 60ml of a humic acid and iron additive to the mix above.
6. Every four weeks, separately spray a wetting agent over the lawn and let the sprinkler system run for ten minutes. The wetting agent is expensive, but a little goes a long way and the effects are worth it.
7. Dethatch (scarify) in the Spring and Fall. Even with cutting just the tops, I can still fill a 120-liter bag with thatch, but this is nothing compared to the eleven 120-liter bags I removed in May.

This sounds like a lot of effort, and it was initially. However, I'm retired and working on my lawn pleases me as much as woodworking...maybe a bit more. After I established the rhythm, the mowing and feeding takes about 45 minutes from shed doors open to shed doors closed. This May, I'll do another minor renovation to apply the second dose of overseeding.

Yep, constant snipping of the top couple of mm forces the grass to grow more shoots from the roots, making a lusher lawn.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Her majesty enjoys mowing the lawn, so one of those would be like Mrs Doyle’s teasmaid

So do I, but I also have a shedload of other things to do in life so if this can do that job for me 90% of the time, allowing me to do other stuff then mow when I want, then I’m happy.

 

[RogerS]

Would it cope with a steep slope, Mark ?

How about molehills poppin up overnight ?

 

[wallace]

I hope it doesn't become sentient like the auto pool cleaner on love death robots. It upgraded itself to become humanoid

 

[TrimTheKing]

Would it cope with a steep slope, Mark ?

How about molehills poppin up overnight ?

Check out the website mate, Mammotion Luba 2 model 1000.

They reckon it deals with up to 38° slopes and in terms of the molehills it has sensors in the front bumper and a camera with collision detection, so while it doesn’t specifically go onto molehills then if it’s big enough to register on the camera, or the bumper hit it, then it will manoeuvre around them and got back to its planned path.

 

[AJB Temple]

Mike in Germany. I admire your incredible diligence. That is some lawn care programme. By maternal grandfather used for decades to manage the green at a bowls club - crazy amount of work. Sold my Ransomes Marquis pro mower last week to a cricket club. They use it do do the medium cuts in whatever the bit that is not between the sumps is called (not the outfield part). I just use a ride on for ours as even though we have reduced the grass there is still too much to mow quickly.

 

[Mike]

Mike in Germany. I admire your incredible diligence. That is some lawn care programme.

Thanks, Adrian. Being retired certainly helps with finding the time, when the weather cooperates. Having the correct tools for the job and enjoying the work also help.

 

[AJB Temple]

I've looked at the website Mark and the specs and the prices of £2200 ish and think you have once again made a rookie error. The much better alternative of sitting on a tractor mowing the lawn means that you are getting "helping around the place" credits which can be cashed in for (insert favoured treat here) and also strung out quite a lot by pretending to maintain the machine. You also get an hour or two of time being unsupervised whilst playing with your ride on toy every week!

Incredibly, you have forked out money that could be spent on tools, wood or beer, and released lots of time that your wife will expect to be put to good use doing stuff that she thinks is a priority. Frankly mate, this is letting the side down. I'm disappointed.

 

[Lons]

Having spent more than 3 hours cutting the grass this afternoon I'm looking whistfully at your contraption Mark. It might also keep the dog excercised while chasing it.

 

[RogerS]

I just tell Carruthers to get the mower out.

 

[Mike G]

My process during the growing season includes:
........

I have taken precisely the opposite approach. I stripped the fertility out of two thirds of our lawn by digging off 3 inches, and replacing it with sand. I then sowed a wild-flower meadow mix, including yellow rattle to suppress grass re-growth. We now have a delightful patch of vibrant colour which attracts all sorts of wildlife. It gets mown flat in August, and overwinters looking almost indistinguishable from the lawn. It is a massive improvement in the garden in our view, and saves hours and hours of work. The rest of the lawn was chest high meadow grass when we moved in, and it has taken a bit of work to get it somewhat lawn-like, including top dressing, scarifying, and re-seeding. It will never be anything other than a rough country-cottage lawn, though. I don't hanker after a bowling green in the back garden!

 

[akirk]

I am probably in-between - we are on an urban plot, so smaller than some on here - though quite big for Bristol...
This year we scarified and re-seeded the top part of the back garden as a test as it can't be seen directly from the house if it didn't work - but it has been very successful and we will scarify the rest this coming Autumn...

The front garden was also scarified and re-seeded and has changed from a very mossy lawn to a lovely grassy lawn as a result - I would like to do more as it is our croquet lawn, but I have been told that I am not allowed the c. 5 year process of building a proper croquet lawn! And anyway, the roughness makes up for the fact that it is really a bit small for croquet anyway...

I am intrigued by the robot mowers, but assume that if you have two different lawns you would need two mowers, and presumably the one out the front would be stolen!

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

.....presumably the one out the front would be stolen!

Certainly would be in Brizzle! No3 Child (a bit off the Gloucester Road) has formed the opinion that: "Unless the item is red-hot, nailed down, or guarded by a slavering Alsatian, it will walk!".

 

[AJB Temple]

We've had a couple of trials of the wildflower meadow approach, including stripping the grass off and laying sand. abject failure. The clay in the weald is ridiculously fertile and resists all attempts to impoverish it. Although we did get a large area of cowslips, deep rooted grasses dominated after a while. Tough and tall grasses are too much for the ride on mower to deal with at the end of the season. We still leave long grass areas in the garden and get an incredible number of voles. Keeps the owls happy I suppose. Behind the potting shed on the other side of the fence from the garden area (fence is anti deer and rabbit) we have I guess an eighth of an acre or maybe more of thick nettles leading down a bank to a footpath. Today I saw a deer and fawn lying in the middle of them. Nettles don't seem to affect deer. Dog walkers ambled along the footpath and the deer stayed dead still. Invisible presumably.

Haven't played croquet since I was at uni. Struck me as a form of cricket for the lazy. Cricket is also for the lazy of course, as only three people do anything: insane wicket keeper who likes having stuff chucked at him at 120mph, bowler and batter. Everybody else lazes about on the grass either drinking afternoon tea or thinking about cake.

 

[akirk]

Certainly would be in Brizzle! No3 Child (a bit off the Gloucester Road) has formed the opinion that: "Unless the item is red-hot, nailed down, or guarded by a slavering Alsatian, it will walk!".

We are a bit further West (used to be just off the Gloucester Rd.) and in theory fewer issues, but we did bizarrely have our doorbell stolen at one point! (Art Deco brass thing).

Haven't played croquet since I was at uni. Struck me as a form of cricket for the lazy. Cricket is also for the lazy of course, as only three people do anything: insane wicket keeper who likes having stuff chucked at him at 120mph, bowler and batter. Everybody else lazes about on the grass either drinking afternoon tea or thinking about cake.

Think of it as chess with the opportunity to hit hard things at other people superb game when you get into the tactics...
We have a lot of passer-bys as our road leads into c. 600acres of woodlands and walks - so families / dog walkers / etc. - we get a lot of interest when we are playing croquet on the front lawn - often with cream tea / Pimms / etc. and yes the accoutrements are as important as the game

 

[Mike]

We bought our house from the original owner in 2011, and it was about three years old when we signed the purchase contract. When she commissioned the house construction, the contract did not include exterior finishing (it was weather tight), completion of the garage (just a shell), or landscaping. All her money was put into the interior finish, which is what sold the house for me.

This is a photo taken of the front of the house showing the exterior condition of the property the day I first saw it. The large lump in the far left corner of the lot is a dump station the concrete trucks used when they poured the foundation, walls, and horizontal slabs. The dump station is a pit that is half a meter deep and about two meters square. Any residue left in the truck after the pour was dumped there. Only the garage was made from blocks, and the rest of the house is reinforced concrete. Very little of the green in the lawn is grass.

The renovation of the yard, garage, and exterior was completed in 2013, and here is an image of about the same view after the grass was established.

Here is an image of the landscaping in progress. The retaining wall on the left and background are new and required about 22 tons of fill dirt and top soil to level the lot.

Here is another view of the yard after the 2013 renovation.

 

[TrimTheKing]

I am intrigued by the robot mowers, but assume that if you have two different lawns you would need two mowers, and presumably the one out the front would be stolen!

Nope, the ones that require a perimeter wire then potentially yes (unless you wanted to move it physically) but the reason I followed this one from the Kickstarter and bought now is that I have three completely disconnected lawn areas. You map out the perimeter's of these and create channels between them, then you can create schedules for when it will go off and mow each, and it will take itself off and do it with no further interaction.

On the stolen part, yep that's possible, but it's bound to your account so it would be unusable for anyone else. Appreciate that doesn't help you if it's gone, but there won't be a market for stolen ones.

Also, i won't got into the details but there is a tracking system for if it did disappear, like in cars, so if it did go walkabout you could potentially find it...

 

[akirk]

Nope, the ones that require a perimeter wire then potentially yes (unless you wanted to move it physically) but the reason I followed this one from the Kickstarter and bought now is that I have three completely disconnected lawn areas. You map out the perimeter's of these and create channels between them, then you can create schedules for when it will go off and mow each, and it will take itself off and do it with no further interaction.

mmm - can see that is a game-changer for some, but for us would still not work - we have big barn / shed contraption built in such a place that access to the garden is through it - it has wide doors so that we can get machinery through, but the doors are closed / locked when not in use... I could send it out through the fence onto next door's drive and then back in through the drive gateway! but it would risk being run over

 

[TrimTheKing]

You do have the ability to save the task but not automate it, then use the Wi-Fi/4G SIM to enable you to manually drive the robot off the charger and to the task area. The on board 3D avoidance cameras allow you to see where you're going, then when it's in the task area you tell it to go to work. It will then notify you if it hasn't finished and needs charging, or has finished, then you can manually drive it back to the home area and to return to base from there.

It's totally situation dependent, you're right. My garden is completely enclosed and the mowing areas are within the envelope and all accessible, so it works for me. Definitely won't work for others.

 

[akirk]

I can see a need for the equivalent of cat-flaps for the mower

 

[AJB Temple]

I refer you to my earlier remarks about ride on mower.....

 

[akirk]

I refer you to my earlier remarks about ride on mower.....

Garden not really big enough - too planted up, quite a bit of grass, but not in neat square blocks...
Fortunately a good petrol mower and a gardener is the current solution - I just quite like the idea of the robot mowers, I think that they are a maturing technology...

 

[AJB Temple]

I agree actually. I would use a robot mower if the garden was a sensible size and if we didn't need to strim the edges. It takes 40 mins with a 52" front articulated ride on so not really practical for a robot. The tech is interesting though and I think Mark has made the right decision to go for a GPS based system - it looks very cool. Friend of mine has a farm shop witha smart lawn beside it and uses an earlier generation robot mower which does the random patterns that Mike referred to. I think it's ideal if you want an immaculate lawn that always looks good and is clearly a time saver and near silent too.

Mark - as a matter of interest, can you programme it to do different cut heights for different areas? We cut the ornamental area much shorter than the area up near our apiary (which is full of clover and bees), and one part is so vigorous that I just elevate the height of cut with the ride on to stop it bogging down.

 

[TrimTheKing]

I agree actually. I would use a robot mower if the garden was a sensible size and if we didn't need to strim the edges. It takes 40 mins with a 52" front articulated ride on so not really practical for a robot. The tech is interesting though and I think Mark has made the right decision to go for a GPS based system - it looks very cool. Friend of mine has a farm shop witha smart lawn beside it and uses an earlier generation robot mower which does the random patterns that Mike referred to. I think it's ideal if you want an immaculate lawn that always looks good and is clearly a time saver and near silent too.

Mark - as a matter of interest, can you programme it to do different cut heights for different areas? We cut the ornamental area much shorter than the area up near our apiary (which is full of clover and bees), and one part is so vigorous that I just elevate the height of cut with the ride on to stop it bogging down.

Yep, the version I have can mow between 25-70mm, there's an 'H' version which can do 55-100mm. Any height can be programmed for any different zone.

 

[jimmy s]

We have one of the stihl jobs that cuts randomly. It's been a great time saver over the last couple of years. It's managing to keep about an acre of lawn cut. My wife gets annoyed with the grass coming into the house as it doesnt pick up, but it saves me a lot of time being the chief mower. It's got a perimeter wire which does on occasion get damaged and it can be a sod to find the break in it. Other issue can be dog toys or the dog dragging branches out that it gets stuck on. Ours seems to get stuck a lot so on the app I named him Willy.

That one looks like a big improvement on ours with no wire to lay and contend with.

 

[RogerS]

....It takes 40 mins with a 52" front articulated ride on so not really practical for a robot. .....

Adrian, I may have misunderstood but surely 'time' is of no consequence to a robot mower ? It will just take a bit longer then you doing it on your sit-upon.

 

[AJB Temple]

I get your drift Roger. Perhaps muddled thinking on my part I agree. What I was getting at is there is quite a lot of grass (excluding the orchards) hence even the big machine takes quite a while. I don't think the robotic machines are ideally suited for quite large areas from what I've seen and read but this is based on the wired perimeter model that my friend has. His mower is not capable of cutting his modest rectangular lawn area on a single charge and he does not have the steps, banks, water, rocks and tree issues that we have. Generally we want the grass all cut on a Friday ready for the weekend. In practice, with the wind and rain we get at the moment, and the large number of trees, we get a lot of bits of twiggy wood and small branches littering the place. The silver birches up by the apiary are the worst for this. In autumn we get a lot of apple fall (trailer loads). Not sure a robot mower would cope, but would happily try out a GPS version. I think they are probably brilliant for a typical, level garden not beset with obstacles.

 

[Mike G]

..... I think they are probably brilliant for a typical, level garden not beset with obstacles.

The ones I watched in Spain last year, as I described above, were the complete opposite. They were up and down steep banks (45 degree banks down to a road......they seemed to go down, but not up), dealt with stony patches, and were covering an area of 3 or 4 acres. There were saplings dotted around here and there, a swimming pool, a path set inches below the level of the lawn, and so on. It wasn't flat, and it wasn't a high quality English-style lawn. These were not ideal conditions.

As for the necessity for being ready for the weekend........with these things the lawn is cut continuously, so is "ready" all the time. Owning one might force you to pick your apples before they become windfalls!

I sound like I am advocating for them. I'm not. I'll never have one, as I rely on grass clippings to supercharge the compost. I'm just suggesting that some of the objections to them in this thread are based on misunderstandings.

 

[AJB Temple]

Sounds impressive Mike. I don't object to them as I said above my sole experience is the one my friend has which I think is a stihl. He has a ditch with a grass slope down at one end of his lawn and he says the robot cannot cut that as it cant climb back up the slope (not steep really but I would not do it on the tractor either) especially of the grass is wet. Would be interesting to know what make the ones you saw in Spain are. Over such a large area I guess they must be GPS ones too.

We mulch the grass anyway (the ride on we have now does not collect unlike the previous John Deere one) so we get no compost benefit unfortunately. Practically all of our compost is leaf shreddings, some bark chippings and remnants from the kitchen garden and tends to be used as mulch. We hot compost everything else.

 

[Mike G]

Without diverting the thread into a composting one, I generate a reasonable amount of saw dust and chippings, and composting that lot is only possible, in my experience, with grass clippings. One layer workshop waste: one layer grass clippings: one layer shredded garden waste. With the right conditions this cooks to a beautiful compost in weeks.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I like the look of that Mark and am tempted. It seems to be able to cope with most things watching the videos on their site.

Have I understood it correctly that the base station needs direct line of sight to the open sky but not to the mower when it’s cutting?

Cheers

Robert

 

[Mike G]

Watch the video above, mine is striping the lawn with a 3 point turn at the end of each stripe.

Why don't you program it to do stripes, but with a pattern which takes out the three point turn? It could go along one strip, then turn 90 degrees right and go 2 or three metres along before going 90 degrees right to do another strip, turn 90 degrees right to then turn and run back alongside the first strip.......and so on. It would save the kerfuffle of the 3 point turn, and presumable save some battery power. In the video, it didn't resume a neat straight line for the strip for quite a few feet after the 3 point turn, and my suggestion would eliminate that issue.