Petrol powered hedge strimmers ...

[Rebel Ian]

Why not suck them up as you go?

Is it not a bit like having a "blow" option on your vaccum and blowing all the dirt in the house into one corner before sucking it up.

Coz then you don't get to use the mega powerful blow function that's like wielding a flame thrower from an Arnold Schwarznegger movie!! Or maybe that despite it's mega suction it doesn't pick up well from the floor so it's easier to pick them up once they're all in a pile.

 

[asterix]

Hay makes good compost, no?

Got fed up with picking up the leaves last year so I just heaped them into piles. Now I have lots of nice rotted leaf mould. I also know that a hedgehog used them to line its hibernation nest under an old tree trunk. It has now moved under the woodpile.

It seems to me the more 'gardening' I do, the fewer the number of creatures that can find a home. I have been building a retaining wall and carefully putting mortar between all the stones. For the rest of it I think I will leave plenty of gaps for lizards and toads to live in and where it is very damp and shady, newts.

 

[meenaghman]

Noisy engines .. that'll be the Briggs and Strattons then.. Honda are quieter. B&S more vibrations. Stihl are quite quiet, and light. I was looking at a leaf sucker thing but think I may go for one of these..as I've a large area to do. The other option is to look for a rideon with an interchangeable deck.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Billy-Goa...werTools_CA&hash=item3caeae6799#ht_1160wt_907

Although the recent cold winters seem to have killed my hedge so I'm waiting to see what happens this year and may just get a digger in and rip it up and put a panel fence in.. lots less maintenance.

 

[PaulSB]

If you have a rotary mower set the height to maximum and run it over areas where you want to clear leaves - lawns, paving etc. The mower acts as a vacuum cleaner and hoovers up the leaves. It will also chop them up and help speed up the composting or leaf moulding process.

 

[fossyant]

Got an electric blower sucker and it sounds like a Hoover on steroids.

 

[Over The Hill]

Hay makes good compost, no?

Got fed up with picking up the leaves last year so I just heaped them into piles. Now I have lots of nice rotted leaf mould. I also know that a hedgehog used them to line its hibernation nest under an old tree trunk. It has now moved under the woodpile.

It seems to me the more 'gardening' I do, the fewer the number of creatures that can find a home. I have been building a retaining wall and carefully putting mortar between all the stones. For the rest of it I think I will leave plenty of gaps for lizards and toads to live in and where it is very damp and shady, newts.

The leaves hay and all sorts gets bunged down the end of the garden to rot. I say to wifey that it is a mulch for the frut trees!

 

[Salad Dodger]

Many years ago, when our electric mower expired, I had the bright idea of buying a petrol one. Flymo with a 2 stroke petrol engine. I would be able to go anywhere with it. i.e. not cut the chord by mowing over it, as had unfortunately happened once before.

So, proudly back from B&Q with my new purchase.

Filled it up with petrol, with the correct oil mix.

Took it out to the front garden for a test run. Nice quiet Saturday afternoon.

Turned on the "kill" switch.

Set the choke.

My wife, who had been sceptical about this purchase (to put it mildly) is watching from the living room.

Pulled the starter string a couple of times. Engine nearly catches....

Pull the string again. Engine gently putt putt putts into life. Lovely smell of burnt 2 stroke oil - I used to be a biker and a 2 stroke fan....

Look through the window at my wife as if to say "see - what's all the fuss about?"

Engine is warming now, so I can turn the choke off...

OH MY GOD! THE THING STARTS REVVING ITS HEAD OFF AND SOUNDS LIKE AN SAS PLATOON HAS BEEN LANDED BY HELICOPTER INTO THE STREET!!!! IF I DON'T HANG ON IT WILL PROBABLY BECOME PROPERLY AIRBORNE.

Neighbours are scraping themselves off their ceilings. Some will probably need counselling. Or Valium. Or a new house about 100 miles away from this maniac with the infernal mowing machine.

I eventually got the front lawn cut, then switched the thing off and stood there with my ears ringing, and my hands tingling from the high frequency vibrations. Withering glances from her indoors and a comment about boys and their toys..... couldn't properly hear it for the Flymo-induced tinnitus that was now afflicting me.


But to be fair we had that mower about 12 years and it ran really well. Eventually it reached a point where so many things were wrong with it that it surpassed my level of bodging ability to keep it limping along and I took it to the dump. Goodbye old friend......

 

[Archie_tect]

If you have a rotary mower set the height to maximum and run it over areas where you want to clear leaves - lawns, paving etc. The mower acts as a vacuum cleaner and hoovers up the leaves. It will also chop them up and help speed up the composting or leaf moulding process.

I get strange looks from people in our street when I cut the concrete drive after trimming the hedges.

 

[Ludwig]

Yes I hate strimmers and we would have done it all with shears, sythes and loppers at one time. It shows how lazy we have become as a nation because all gardening has to be done with electical and petrol machines when when a lot of the time sythes, shears, loppers, push lawnmowers will do the job just as well. It annoys be when they go around grave yards with petrol strimmers that make a god almighty din. Strimmers would be on the top of my ban list.

 

[XmisterIS]

Yes I hate strimmers and we would have done it all with shears, sythes and loppers at one time. It shows how lazy we have become as a nation because all gardening has to be done with electical and petrol machines when when a lot of the time sythes, shears, loppers, push lawnmowers will do the job just as well. It annoys be when they go around grave yards with petrol strimmers that make a god almighty din. Strimmers would be on the top of my ban list.

And sheep. I remember when I was a kid, the farmer used to put a sheep in the graveyard of the church near my Aunt's place; that was the way it had been done for centuries. Then f***ing health and f***ing safety came along wearing their nanny-state hat and sucked through their teeth and said, "Oooooo no! You can't possibly have a sheep in a graveyard! That's faaaaaar to dangerous!" So now it all gets done with a strimmer.

 

[Archie_tect]

And sheep. I remember when I was a kid, the farmer used to put a sheep in the graveyard of the church near my Aunt's place; that was the way it had been done for centuries. Then f***ing health and f***ing safety came along wearing their nanny-state hat and sucked through their teeth and said, "Oooooo no! You can't possibly have a sheep in a graveyard! That's faaaaaar to dangerous!" So now it all gets done with a strimmer.

Wonder why a sheep is dangerous... in case it falls in a deep hole or in case it looks at someone? Bah humbug.

 

[Hover Fly]

Yes I hate strimmers and we would have done it all with shears, sythes and loppers at one time.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Ch.HF employed six gardeners, now we make do with two and a trainee. Why the drop? There is no need for two to be almost permanently caring for the lawns for a start, they can be cut in one morning on a ride-on mower, similarly hedge trimmers have made that job a lot quicker as have rotavators helped. Just as in the house washing machines and such things have made a big drop in the number of cleaners and others employed.
Incidentally when my old house was built as a council house in the 1930s, the district council sent men round fortnightly to trim the hedges and care for the lawns in the summer, I wonder what the Daily Wail readership would say to that nowadays?

 

[asterix]

They eat all the flowers. Guinea pigs would be a better choice.

Do sheep eat guinea pigs?

 

[tyred]

Pigs are what you want. They do a wonderful job of keeping a lawn short...

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Slab it.