Hi All,
I have lived in a house with Couch for about 4 years. Before that I had a large buffalo lawn that I had looking great and just used a rotary mower with that.
The previous owner of my house was retired and spent all his time looking after the place. He had a cylinder mower, and when we inspected the house, the lawns were pristine. The best I had ever seen at that time. I was told he mowed several times a week by the neighbours.
Anyway, I moved in and did my best to my knowledge to keep the lawns looking good, and they looked OK for a year or two. They were looking good and I was mowing them with my rotary mower as low as I could with that (it scalped in places if any lower) and I decided to try my father in laws SB45. At the time I decided to leave the height setting as the same as he used as I did not want to interfere with his settings. I mowed it, and it was mowed lower than normal so went yellow. But then a few days later it was not recovering and I realised the lawn had been almost entirely killed off by black beetle/lawn grub. I think the shock of mowing so low combined with the grub eating away for some time al but killed it. It took a long time for it to recover, and I lost interest in the hope of a beautiful lawn. I was frustrated at Couch as I had achieved a beautiful Buffalo lawn with little effort at my previous house.
Fast forward to this Spring. The lawn was covered with weeds and looking terrible, and I was either going to resurrect it or replace with Buffalo. I decided to have a go at resurrecting. It was covered in weeds, and had lots of little piles of dirt from the black beetle. An extensive campaign of spraying weeds/beetle interchanging weekly for a few months has gotten things mostly under control. Still a little evidence of the beetle and some stubborn weeds, but mostly under control. The last 6 weeks of fertilising and regular mowing got it looking as good as it has under my ownership, so I took the plunge last weekend and purchased an SB45 (reconditioned with sharp blades and seems adjusted well) in the hope of keeping the momentum running to get the lawn as close as I can to it's former glory.
So I used the mower last weekend, but due to fear of what happened last time on the borrowed SB45, I ran the height at max setting. The height seemed similar to what I was achieving on my rotary mower, but the finish was better. I really have no idea on the best plan of attack to get the lawn as good as possible. Current plan is to reduce the height weekly until I can get it as low as possible without scalping, but I have no idea how much to reduce and how to measure the height. I can only really commit to mowing once per week, but may be able to do more on occasion. Is there any beginner's guide available for a newbie going from a reasonable rotary mower kept lawn to an immaculate cylinder mower kept lawn? I did also see the guide posted on levelling a couch lawn with sand which I would like to try, but I assume it is too late in the season now (high 30s today/tomorrow!!) to do that, so should wait until next spring?
Also, I live in a property surrounded by tress, so my lawn is always covered in sticks and leaves The rotary mower just munched the sticks and picked up the leaves which was convenient. Last weekend before mowing with the SB45, I picked up the sticks, and left the leaves. I was worried about bending a blade so picked up the sticks, but figured the leaves were not going to damage anything. I noticed the cylinder mower does not seem to pickup the leaves like the rotary does which is a shame. Is there a rough guide on the size of stick that is safe for my SB45. There are many that are quite thin (2-3mm) that I figure should be OK, but obviously I think a 10mm thick would not be? Another option is for me to mow with the rotary first and suck up any leaves and sticks and then run over it with the SB45. Or I could rake it, but that does not sound like much fun!!
My neighbour across the road has a lovely lawn that he maintains with his cylinder mower, so let the battle of the lawns begin!! He has a Mazsport (in the shop for a clutch repair!!), so I think I have an early advantage!
Cheers,
Adrian
