Bermuda Lawn Dominators
The Bermuda Lawn Dominators Podcast is your go-to resource for DIY lawn care enthusiasts looking to transform their lawns. Join hosts Skip Wheeler and Jason Crain as they provide practical tips, personal insights, and engaging discussions to help you dominate your lawn game. With a supportive community and a touch of fun with the "Lawn Beer of the Week" segment, this podcast is your ticket to achieving the lawn of your dreams and have fun on the journey. Let's get greener together!
Bermuda Lawn Dominators
Advanced Lawn Care Techniques: From Mowing to Robotics
Prepare to turn the ordinary into extraordinary as we delve into the world of advanced lawn care techniques. Ever wondered why your lawn doesn't look as crisp and even as a professional golf course? This week, we're exploring the secrets behind achieving that lush, perfectly manicured look, from the science of sand leveling and aeration to the art of mowing.
We'll be diving into a comparison of rotary and reel mowers, including why the number of blades on your mower actually matter. If you're considering an electric option, we've got some valuable insights into the pros and cons of electric reel mowers. We've also got a fresh beer review for you - our take on the Sun Bump, a delightful Belgian style wheat beer from Wise Care Brewing Company in Memphis, Tennessee. Let's raise a glass to lawns well done!
Also, we're buzzing with excitement to share our thoughts on the robot revolution in the lawn care industry! If you're curious about how these impressive machines stack up against traditional mowing techniques, we've got you covered. So, tune in and get ready to elevate your lawn care game to the next level.
Welcome to the Bermuda Lawn Dominators podcast, the one stop destination for all things lawn care, where we unlock the secrets to achieving a pristine and envy inducing lawn. I'm Jason Cray and I'm here with Skip Wheeler. We're not experts, just passionate about lawns.
Speaker 4:In our last four episodes we covered the four tenets of lawn care mowing, watering, fertilizing and weed control. Today we take it up a level and explore three advanced techniques that will set your lawn apart from the rest sand leveling, aeration and mowers. These are the secrets that lawn enthusiasts use to achieve all inspiring results that turn heads and spark envy. But first let's quench our thirst with the Lawn Beer of the Week.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Lawn Beer of the Week, where we motivate your lawn care with a side of hoppy happiness. Join us as we sip on refreshing brews that pair perfectly with tending to your lawn. Get ready to enjoy some grassy goodness and raise a glass to a lawn well done All right, what kind of beer we got.
Speaker 1:So today we have the Sun Bump. It's a Belgian style wheat beer, yep, and it's from Wise Care Brewing Company in Memphis, tennessee.
Speaker 4:Oh, one that's not from Texas. That's great, yes.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think this one and the last one weren't from Texas.
Speaker 4:So okay, great, trying to branch out a little bit there. Yeah, people ought to be able to get this wherever they're at. So a nice orange can with a little psychedelic drawing on it. Very aromatic smelling. I can smell it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's supposed to have lots of notes, like coriander and what do you think? Oh, that's got a little bit of a bit of a bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll drink it but it's got a bitter taste and I'm not a bitter beer fan at all or not bitter, I guess. Is that the right word? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I would say bitter. Yeah it's. It's a pretty good. It's pretty light, not too high on the ABV, the alcohol volume it's a 5.1. But it does. It has a little of a finishing, a little aftertaste. That's a little bit more better than the other ones we tried.
Speaker 4:I like it. It's just a little bit more bitter than I'm used to.
Speaker 1:But it's a. It's a good light wheat beer, or maybe for the summer.
Speaker 4:Is there hops in wheat beer, Because that's what I think I'm tasting is. Is it hops or something? I don't know, yeah, there is Okay. Yeah, I think that's what I'm tasting is a heavier hops, and I think that's what it is about beers in general, I don't like, but I do like this one. This one's okay. It's not been my favorite one so far, but I do like it Get out and get you some sunbump. Yeah, try some, and if you have some ideas for beers, yeah let us know.
Speaker 1:Just drop a note, drop a comment on the Facebook page and let us know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we'll look. We'll look it up. If we can get it, we'll try it. There may be a bit of competition out there for different ones. We should try, but we'll. If you make some recommendations, we're happy to give it a shot. All right, so what are we talking about this week?
Speaker 1:So today we're going to we've covered the four tenants yes Of lawn care, the things that you must do if you want to have a nice lawn. So now we're going to take it up a little bit and we're going to look at three different things that may just set your lawn apart a little bit more. Make it the best in the neighborhood, best lawn around. Give you that domination line that you see on a lot of the pictures that we have on our Facebook group.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, I think if you take care of the four tenants mow, water, fertilize and weed you're going to stick out already. But if you want to go to that next level, these are the things to start getting, and once you've got a handle on those four things, you might start getting a little bored with your lawn right. So give you some other things to do, and there's exactly the lines of living things. So there's always something else to do. There's something else to. There's always something you can do to take it to the next level. So what's the first thing that you recommend?
Speaker 1:So the first thing that we're going to talk about is sand, sand leveling, yes. So let's just talk about why do we sand level? First of all, I mean it kind of, you know, gives you an idea in the name. But right.
Speaker 4:So it's not so much leveling as it is flattening right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:So you're just flattening your yard. Try to get that nice flat golf green. Look to your lawn. I have done it a couple of times in my front yard. My backyard is way too big to go back there and do it. But I've done it a couple of times and it does help. But it takes several times, maybe even every year for a few years and then every once in a while doing some maintenance of doing it.
Speaker 1:Right. Why do we use sand? Why don't we use topsoil?
Speaker 4:Well, that's a great question, and a lot of people are adamant that they're not going to use sand. They're going to use some topsoil or manure. But anything that's organic will break down over time, right, and so that will just create your divots. Your holes in the lawn will come right back.
Speaker 4:Come back, as that breaks down. So we use sand, because it's not organic and it doesn't break down and it creates that flat surface. So if you want to fertilize or if you want to put compost down, that's fine, but it's not going to do the same thing as leveling your lawn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it gives you a little better drainage too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it absolutely does you know?
Speaker 1:the particles of the sand can sift down through the grass better. I think it can fill in all those low spots for you A little bit better than if you have something that's more clumpy like the topsoil and that's a little bit harder to work down into those low spots.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is In the sand A lot of people ask me what type of sand and I just use masonry sand. Just get a load of it from the gravel place downtown and they bring it out on a truck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the masonry sand. The particles are really smaller than other types of sand that you can get out there and it's nice and it's clean and dry.
Speaker 4:You don't get a lot of junk in it right. Right, well, and if you're not needing a truck load of it, you can go to Lowe's and buy some play sand as well. Yeah, a lot of people have done that. I haven't done that. I probably should. I got a couple holes I need to do.
Speaker 1:So what kind of tools can you use to do your sand leveling? So you buy your sand, you go out get your play sand, masonry sand well and you want to get started.
Speaker 4:The first thing you're going to need is a shovel.
Speaker 1:Right, yes.
Speaker 4:But, the shovel or some way to move the sand from a pile into the yard, but then you want to either a leveling rake or a landscaper's rake. Have you seen those? Yes, I have one of those, but that's a lot of work if you're doing a big area. So I also have a drag mat that I pull behind the riding on more. It's just a drag mat that you use for baseball fields and it works very, very well. But you don't have to do that. You could build. I see a lot of people build their own.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've seen several on our Facebook group where people build their own leveling rake and it works good, or even the drag mats. You can build your own on the drag mats.
Speaker 4:Pretty much anything that'll drag across the yard. You know, I've even seen people take a two by four, a couple two by fours, and put some weight on it and then just put a rope on that and drag it by hand.
Speaker 4:That works as well that way you have some control over the size to anything over about at least four foot wide just what I would probably do, or at least four foot wide. Maybe you might be able to get away with a little bit less than that, but about four foot wide and drag it through the line with a little bit of weight on it and just go over and over. But I would recommend scalping first.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so you take it down as low as you can go, yeah, and then you can get the sand, and then and I haven't done this myself, and this is something that I plan on doing at the beginning of the next season growing season- yeah. Because, you know, I had that brand new lawn and it is definitely yeah, new, larger and lumpy need of leveling they're always lumpy in the beginning and it takes some time, and I think you did.
Speaker 4:you know, an alternative to sanding is also rolling rolling and you did that once already I did. How did that work?
Speaker 1:It worked pretty well. I just rented a roller from Home Depot and you fill it with water. That's where you get the weight and you just push it around your yard. You know, and I did it multiple directions, trying to, you know, get it from different directions and it helped some.
Speaker 1:But there where I noticed that it wasn't helping is where you had. It was making the high spots lower. But there were some places that where it dipped, the lawn dipped down and in those spots you know, you couldn't make the rest of the lawn as low as that dip.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's where I need to go in, and do a good sand leveling on that.
Speaker 4:That makes sense, but it did help with the high spots.
Speaker 1:It did help with the high spots, that's good. Yeah, and I probably need to do it one more time. The thing about that is you need to get it. Either do it after really good rain, where it's nice and soft, the ground is nice and soft or water it really really well before that makes sense, you get out there and do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't guess you had much rain out there. No, I didn't I tried to water.
Speaker 1:I tried to water as much as I could, but I think it was probably a little bit too dry and I had so much to do. It was is crazy on level and it's still pretty bumpy out there.
Speaker 4:It'll settle over time as well. A new lawn is going to settle for probably a year or two.
Speaker 1:So I did notice that some people use a broadcast spreader to spread their sand.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've seen that. I've never tried it. It doesn't look very efficient to me, yeah.
Speaker 1:I would think that you would do that if you didn't have a whole lot of, if the elevation differences weren't that much so the dips weren't that low. So you could probably use a broadcast spreader, but most of what I've seen is people taking a wheelbarrow and a shovel and distributing the sand throughout their yard and then pulling it either with a drag mat or with a rake.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's pretty much what I've seen. I've have seen those professional level droppers. I don't know what you call them, but they load it up, drive it. You drive it around the lawn and you just drop like a layer of sand all over. That would be awesome, but I would think I mean that's a professional level machine, so I don't know where you could rent one of those.
Speaker 1:Maybe one of the equipment rental places would have it, or if you have a good friend that works at a golf course.
Speaker 4:Yeah, or if you're on a golf course, maybe you can just drive it over.
Speaker 1:So when is a good time to level your lawn?
Speaker 4:You know, anytime it's growing it's fine. Starting the spring is what I typically like to do it and I feel like this time of year and where we're at, it's so hot that I wouldn't do it this time of year, just because it's a lot of the grasses and dormancy, just for the because of the heat. So I like to do it in spring, but I notice there's still plenty of people doing it this time of year, especially out closer to the east coast Alabama, georgia. I've seen people doing it up there.
Speaker 1:They're getting plenty of rain.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they're getting a lot of rain, so that helps. We're just having the growth I mean. To be honest, I don't even really there's no PGR or anything on my grass right now and I'm not really having to mow, but every four or five days.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I'm the same way.
Speaker 4:So if it's not growing, if it's not actively growing, you don't want to do it, right, okay?
Speaker 1:that makes sense? Yeah, and you can. You know, like Skip said, do it at the beginning of the growing season and the spring, early summer, and then, as you're going along, you know, throughout the season, if you have some low spots that you notice, you can grab a bag of sand from lows and level that one spot. So, and I have done that, I haven't done the full yard, but I have taken a few bags of sand that I had left over from other projects.
Speaker 4:Just to level that a little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to level it out. They were in my old lawn. There were a couple places where they had. They had a closed line pole at one time that was taken up and even though it had been filled in it kept sinking down. I leveled that out pretty well. And then we had some other pretty good dips in the yard and I just I leveled those.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remind people it's just like a divot on the golf course, right. They always have you just fill it with sand and you just go on and right, and then you can do that in your yard just as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you see the pictures of the that the people take on the Facebook group or online, anywhere where people have done it, it looks crazy. I'm sure the neighbors will think you're insane.
Speaker 4:Oh, they first put the sand down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you put it first put the sand down it looks like.
Speaker 4:Looks like the beach came right Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's a little bit of grass peeking through in certain areas, but I mean it doesn't take very long before that grass. No, it doesn't take long at all but that's part of.
Speaker 4:What makes it fun, too, is when the neighbors think you've just now, you've done it.
Speaker 3:You've lost your mind.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you've lost your mind, you scalped it, then you covered it with sand and your lawn's not going to recover. And then, a few weeks later, they're asking you what you did, even though they saw you do it all.
Speaker 1:And then they tell you it won't work Exactly. So that's sand leveling.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, don't overthink sand leveling. As long as the grass is actively growing, just put sand out there. Stick with something that doesn't have any organics in it and just press on. Don't overthink it, just do it, and if it doesn't work the way you want it to the first time, change it up a little bit the next time. It's not something that you do once and forget either. It's something you're going to have to do several times before you get it to a point where it's really noticeably flat.
Speaker 1:So the next thing that we want to talk about is aeration. Aeration, again, is something else that I haven't done to my lawn yet. Like many of you, I'm probably at the beginning stages of getting my lawn to that pristine where everybody's turning their heads looking at it, asking if it's real or not.
Speaker 4:Well, really, with the new lawn like you have, there shouldn't be any reason to aerate, because they just put it back, yeah they just put it back, filled that whole lawn with soil.
Speaker 4:So where do you want to aerate would be where the lawn is starting to get compacted. If you have a lawn that's getting compacted, then you want to aerate just to loosen up that soil, and the reason you want to do that is to allow the nutrients and water to get down to the roots. I have been here for 10 years. I've never aerated. I probably should at some point. We don't have clay here, so it doesn't get compacted as easily as some soils. But it can still get compacted for sure. But that's when you want to do it. Anytime you get some compaction going on and the way to check is just by looking and seeing if the soil is hard and compacted, and might even try the stick test just to see how hard it is to push stuff through. But if you're getting some compaction, then I would aerate On my last lawn.
Speaker 1:It was the one that I brought back from nothing but dirt and a few sprigs of Bermuda grass. It was due to an aeration if I hadn't moved to this new one. That was one of my plans, but that soil was a little bit different than the soil here because it was mostly clay and it would compact pretty well.
Speaker 4:You know, one of the biggest things causing compaction is just mowing in the same direction all the time, so that causes it. I think that's a lot of what the compaction that I have going on.
Speaker 1:So mow perpendicular yeah.
Speaker 4:I try to mow in different directions. I mean, I am partial to pointing my lines at the neighbors, right, but I should change it up a little bit more than I do. I do change it up, though, when it comes to aeration.
Speaker 1:there's some different tools that you can use and different types of aeration, because you can do the spike aeration, where you're basically poking holes into the ground, and then there's core aeration, where you're pulling out plugs of dirt and grass. What are some of the different tools that we can use for those?
Speaker 4:Well, there's also the shoes. The shoes, yes, the shoes with the big spikes, the big spikes on it.
Speaker 1:So then you just make a few laps around the yard with the spike shoes.
Speaker 4:That looks like way too much work for me. I don't know how well they would work, I guess if you're creating holes, it'd be fine.
Speaker 4:I think the core aeration is probably the most efficient and probably the most beneficial. Just thinking about it from a theoretical point of view. You're removing the soil and putting it up on the top of the grass, so that way you have some space for that soil to move into. With anything else, you're just compacting it in spots with spikes, so the top layers are able to loosen up a little bit, but you still compact it underneath. I don't know. I don't know if one's better or not. I would think what core aeration would be, but, like I said, I haven't done it.
Speaker 1:So the research that I've done all said that core aeration was actually better for your bond than the spikes. The spikes will help, you know, even cutting those rhizomes you know, for me to help promote the growth, the spreading of the two. So either one will do that. But the core aeration, really, you know, pulls that soil out, like you said, to the top of the ground and it gives the nutrients a pathway down to the roots of it.
Speaker 4:Then what do you do with the cores?
Speaker 1:Right, that was my next question, though that's kind of a debate that I've seen go back and forth on our Facebook group.
Speaker 4:What are most?
Speaker 1:people doing. There's different things. Some people use them as plugs for areas of their lawn where maybe it's not growing so well. You know they need, so they can pull those plugs up and just plant them somewhere else.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, that would work absolutely. You just kind of use it as a plug for grass in other areas.
Speaker 1:But I think most people are just leaving them there and letting them break down on themselves.
Speaker 4:That makes sense and that's probably what I would do. Maybe I would break them up in the front yard, but just just for the aesthetics, right yeah, yeah, it would look nicer than having the huge plugs sticking out on your lawn. So I guess you're going to do some aeration. It might be good to do aeration and then sanding right following it.
Speaker 1:Right, that's what I've read is a lot of people do the aeration right before they sand.
Speaker 4:So then. So to your next question. Here is what time of year do you aerate? So I guess you'd want to do it as long as it's growing right actively growing.
Speaker 1:So the same thing with sand leveling, anytime you, you could do one, you could do the other, yeah so really, you could scalp your lawn, do your aeration, preferably core aeration, and then you can do your sand leveling.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then fix your sprinkler system at the same time.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly Because you're going to hit something. Yeah, that's one thing you need to you watch out for the sprinkler system.
Speaker 4:That's one of my big fears, because here we're on rock, we're on pretty much solid rock, and so the sprinkler company, when they put the pipes in, did not put them in very deep, so and I don't know exactly where they're running. I kind of got an idea, but I'm just, I'm confident I'm going to hit something.
Speaker 1:Well, and I have a concern and I saw that someone asked us on the on the Facebook group a few months ago and no one really had an answer to this. So if anyone knows, you know, let me know. But you know I have that drip system. Oh yeah with the lines. They're not running in straight lines, they're all over the place and they're right below the sod yeah they're right below the sod you would not be able to do core aeration at all. Yeah, so that may be, I mean, if.
Speaker 1:I ever have to do it. Maybe I do the spikes and hope I don't just create some new drip lines, yeah, new holes in the drip lines. But there are a few different tools that you can use for either spiked or core aeration. You have the for both of them. You have the handled tools that have either have the spikes or they have the three or four hollow core tines on the bottom.
Speaker 1:That yeah and you just put them in the ground, step on the plate, mash them in the ground and then pull them out. And then, if it's the spikes, they'll just create holes in your yard, and if it's the core aeration tool, it pulls up those plugs out.
Speaker 4:So that may be a way to go if you don't have a real big lawn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'll be a lot of work, yeah and then, of course, you have, you know, the rollers, the drums.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I've seen those as well. Yeah, those are always just spikes, right? They're not core.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do have some rollers with the with the hollow tines and okay or you can do core aeration with those.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's an area I haven't really gotten into at all and really a lot of it's because I haven't felt like I needed it and I'm a little worried about the sprinkler system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's definitely a consideration that you have to take into account is what's beneath the surface there? Yeah, so our next topic that we want to talk about, to take your lawn up to the next level, is what kind of mower are you using? I know we talked a lot about in our first couple of episodes about how you don't have to, you know, go out and buy an expensive mower.
Speaker 1:No, we don't To have a nice lawn. But if you want to take it up to the next level, you can choose a nicer mower if you have the extra cash to yeah it can get expensive for sure.
Speaker 4:What I tell people once they get ready to move to a real mower is just look on craigslist or on marketplace, you'll find somebody getting rid of one. But going from a rotary to a real does kind of change the look. There's some good rotaries out there and there's a the Honda does a really good job and it looks really nice. But the biggest problem with it is that a rotary mower has a big deck on it and that deck spans, you know, 20 something inches and everything underneath it is what it's going to mow. So if you have some low spots where it's going to high center, so that's where you end up scalping. That's the difference between where a rotary will scalp a lot more than a real will, because a real has a bar across the front, a roller. Generally most of them have a roller across the front that keeps it from scalping at all. So that's the difference. You can have a really nice lawn with a rotary, but you're going to have to mow just a little bit higher than you can with a real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the real you can get in there low. So one of our members of the Facebook group. Ryan Bedovi and I'm maybe butchering the last name. If I am, I'm sorry, but he he did a little experiment today to show everyone the difference and he mowed a small strip of his yard that he usually keeps under half an inch with his McLean reel and he mowed it with his rotary and there's scalped places in there and he's mowing higher. He was mowing at three quarters of an inch with the rotary and it still scalps some of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the rotary is going to scalp much, much higher than I, right? Yeah. So I tell people that all the time. A lot of times people say, oh, I need to get my lawn a lot flatter before I put a real mower on it. That's not true at all. The real mower will make your lawn look flatter after you mow it with that. It's not that the it's not that people have flattened their lawns, is that using a reel makes it look flatter. So if that's what you're waiting on is to flatten or to level your lawn, don't, don't wait on that. The reel will make it look much flatter than it is.
Speaker 1:And I can attest to that with the, with the bumpy lawn that I've talked about, that I have right now. So the first few weeks that I lived here I I had ordered a real mower. I hadn't come in yet. I was renting a rotary mower from Home Depot and it was a Honda. It was a real nice, nice Honda mower and it would do a good job. But I had to mow very high, you know, because of all the lumps, and I was still scalping a few areas, even mowing it high. And then my real mower came in and I started mowing with that and I would the first strip. I was amazed at the difference that it made and even my wife came out and she said that looks really good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it makes a huge difference. Yeah, yeah, and that's one way to take your lawn to the next level, for sure.
Speaker 1:It is. This is a real mower.
Speaker 4:Did you notice a difference in how it cut versus the rotary? Not just that it wasn't scalping, but the cut itself. Yeah the cut was much better.
Speaker 1:And I think that was what the I think that was actually the difference that my wife noticed was the way that the, that the grass looked after I had mowed that first strip of lawn.
Speaker 4:Now, were you taking it down a level or something?
Speaker 1:I took it down some, and I had to actually because I I the real mower that I have now, will not mow as high as that.
Speaker 4:Oh, is what the Is that on the rotary mower Well of course, yeah, but you probably won't name mow as high as the lowest setting on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would probably be close yeah.
Speaker 4:With the real mowers. The next question is how many? How many blades do you get right? Five, seven, 10, 12.
Speaker 1:Right, what do you have now? I have a seven blade.
Speaker 4:That's what I have as well.
Speaker 1:I kind of went in the middle.
Speaker 4:Well, and the difference between the number of blades is how fine up a cut right, Right. So the problem with it is the more blades you have, you're going to have a very fine cut and the and then the problem is that you cannot let it get too high because it will not mow it. If it gets high, Right, it's just the blades are too close together. It will. It'll stop it up, It'll bind it. So you have to mow more often, but you get a much cleaner mow with the more blades you have. But I think a seven is a good middle of the road. Five is a little low.
Speaker 1:Now if you're doing the push, you might want to do a five. That's that's exactly what I was going to say. I I had a five blade push mower, the manual reel that I used on my last lawn, and it there was a difference. You could tell a difference between it and my rotary there. Even though I wasn't mowing that much lower with that, but the cut was was better and it was. I bought it used for $100.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was. It wasn't expensive at all to do that. It's just, you know, if you have a small lawn and you don't mind getting out there and pushing that thing, it's a good exercise.
Speaker 4:It is yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to have a pretty good pace to keep the real spinning fast enough to do it.
Speaker 4:Well, if you're going to use a mangle mower, it's definitely some exercise, but then you have the options of gasoline or electric. I see Exactly.
Speaker 1:So our next topic on here.
Speaker 4:I've only ever had gasoline ones.
Speaker 1:That's all I've had with the mowers too, and I actually, when I was looking at the real mowers before I actually bought one, I was looking at electric.
Speaker 4:Which ones did you look at?
Speaker 1:I looked at, and I was looking at the cheap ones. That may have swayed my decision a little bit, because a lot of those didn't go down to the you know, the really low height of cutting Some of them. You couldn't even adjust. But I was looking at, like this, the Sun Joe, the green works that about that level.
Speaker 4:Now I know there are some other manufacturers that on the higher end that have electric. So I know Swartman has an electric, I think McLean has an electric I'm not positive of that one, though but there are some higher ends that have electric, and essentially all they're doing is the same frame as like the more I have. The Swartman is the same frame. They just put an electric motor on it with a lithium ion battery, and I wish I'd gotten one of those, just because it's a little bit less work having to charge it and just go then maintain it with oil and gas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to change the oil and you don't have to keep going to buy gas for it.
Speaker 4:And yeah, with the advancements in batteries now I kind of leaning towards the electrics, or at least by next one will probably be electric. I'll do some good research on it, but I think the electrics might be the way to go in the future, just because of the ease of use.
Speaker 1:I even noticed and I think you pointed this out too that at many of the big box stores Sam's, lowe's, Home Depot those places a majority of the options in Lawn Mowers Rotary Lawn Mowers, I'm talking about are electric. They are a lot better than they used to be. I remember when I switched to an electric weed eater.
Speaker 1:I always used gas before, and I did too and the electric weed ears that I had prior to using gas for several years they weren't even in the same class as the gasoline ones you could buy back then. But now I have an electric one that works just as good as any gasoline as far as cutting, and then I don't have to worry about having to try to start it, having to maintain it, having to change the carburetor on it or anything like that.
Speaker 4:You know, that's just that ends up being the problem. You end up letting the gas sit over the winter. If you don't drain it, if you're not meticulous about it, then you end up having to replace the carburetor. Clean the carburetor, at least at a minimum. To be honest, it's a little painful to start those. It is definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's many times you'd see me cussing in my driveway trying to start that gasoline lumbar. And now it's just simply. You put a battery in it and go in. The battery lasts for a long time. I know you have an acre.
Speaker 4:here I have an acre and mine lasts for the whole acre. I've never run out before it's come real close. And that's not just using it as a weed eater, but also have a blower for attachment and an edger attachment. So I've done all of that and I don't recall any time I've ever run out.
Speaker 1:I have a quarter of an acre and that's about what I had at my last place, and I had a lot of weed eating at the last place because there were a lot of the terrain where you couldn't mow with anything other than a weed eater. And the battery life was really good. So probably my next purchase of a lawn mower in the next few years. I probably won't be in the market for a while, but I'm sure it'll be an electric. It's just so much easier to handle.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would probably go to the electric as well. So that's getting into. I mean, the next thing that you have on your list here is robot mowers. They're all electric, all electric. Yeah, so people probably seeing the post by now Mamosan Robot Lawn Mower Company it's a startup. They contacted us and offered us a Luba 5000 to do a review. Now, everything upfront. They did give it to us for free to review, but it's not gonna change my review of it. I'm not going to be biased one way or the other.
Speaker 4:I wanted to see if it's at all even possible to do what we're doing in our lawn with electric robot lawn mower, and I've looked at these for years and for a long time you had to have a perimeter wire, kind of like the invisible fence for your dog, and this is the first one I've seen. There's a couple of others out there now too that doesn't take a perimeter wire. So this one here. You drive it around the lawn, you tell it what the parameters are of your lawn, you mark off some no-go zones and it does it on its own and it's all electric. It's not using blades, it's not a real mower, it's not using rotary. It's completely different than anything I've ever seen. It's actually a disc under there with razor blades that spin and they just cut the grass real fine. So it will not mow, doesn't do a real good job on tall, thick grass or tall grass. I should say it does fine on thick grass as long as you're not taking a lot off.
Speaker 4:But I've been very impressed with this one so far. I'm gonna put out a video at some point and tell you guys a little bit more about it, but so far jury's still out. But it's done really well. I really like the robot lawn mower so in this 100 degree heat that we've had here for the last two weeks, it's better than me getting out there. I'm not sure how this is gonna go. My jury is still out on it. We're still doing some testing with it, but I've been impressed so far.
Speaker 1:So I know that you have a large area in the back that you were using a riding lawn mower for, so I guess this robot lawn mower just you don't have to worry about that anymore at all.
Speaker 4:Well, that was the idea. So I have three different areas of my lawn right. So I have a green space area that I mow rarely, it's not sodded, I mow it very high and that I typically just use my riding lawn mower set at the highest setting. It's very dusty back there and I just keep it mowed down to keep the snakes and varmints away. And then I have the backyard, which is fenced in area and about half of that is sodded. The other half is seated and I mow that with my riding lawn mower about two inches. And that was the idea for the robot lawn mower. That's what I was gonna do with it Use it for that section. And then the front yard's kind of the display piece right.
Speaker 4:So I guess I have a lawn mullet going on the business in the front and the party in the back with the lawn grass in the back and short in the front. And so in the front yard I've been using a real mower for years and keeping that about a half inch to an inch with a real mower. The idea with the robot was to I could probably get rid of the middle part, right, the backyard that's fenced in. You just use the robot for that, because I mown it at two inches anyway and then occasionally do the green belt. However, I have tried it on the front, I've been using it on the front and I am impressed so far with the results. Now, the only problem I've had so far is it only goes down to 1.2 inches.
Speaker 4:So, and I typically mow some, yeah, about a half inch to, yeah, usually a half inch, three quarters in, sometimes an inch. So I can't get down as low as I was, but one inch isn't bad and it looks pretty good. It hasn't scalped anything. It's done a really good job in the front yard, but mostly I got it from Maintain. I tell you what, if you talk about mowing, often it's a lot easier to mow. Often, when you got somebody or something the robot doing it for you, you can mow two to three times a week and not think about it. You can mow every other day, which is what a lot of people do with these robots. So I've been impressed with it so far. We'll see I'll give you guys more review after I've used it for a while and kind of got a better idea, but so far it's been pretty good.
Speaker 1:You think that maybe it would replace what you're doing in the front. I think it, with the real.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the jury's still out right now, but I think the competition's gonna be there. Yeah, I think you could. Probably you could set it for maintaining the lawn and then using a real mower when you wanted to, or if you're going on vacation, you know it might be good to, so you're not coming back to a real thick, tall lawn, not having to hire somebody to do it. I mean, it is easy. Yeah, I think it could possibly give real mowers a run for the money. We'll see.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about it mowing when you're not here? Are you comfortable with it going while you're not able to check on it periodically?
Speaker 4:I am, so I've been running it in the backyard at night about bedtime. I'm gonna get up the next morning to completely freshly mowed lawn and I don't have to think about it. It doesn't dive off into the pool, which was one of my concerns.
Speaker 1:You'll go off course or something like that Take off down the street, I take off down the street.
Speaker 4:Now the the drawback is is that you got to let it in and out of the gate for the front yard Because it has a charging station right. So just like a room but a vacuum cleaner right, it's got a charging station is going to sit on and getting it to the front yard It'll, it'll drive to the front yard, but somebody's got to be there to open the gate or you're gonna have to figure out some way to let it through the gate, through your fence, into the front yard, and that's the. The biggest drawback for being out of town would be just be being here to open the gate and let it in and out. Yeah, I think it could possibly. It'll definitely replace mowing in the backyard with the right mower, but I haven't figured out a good alternative to me opening the gate. But opening the gate is a small price to pay if you're not actually having to push them or yourself.
Speaker 1:So do you see this as like the the wave of the future that everybody will be mowing their lawns?
Speaker 4:I do, I, and I think it's happening faster than people realize. I would say in the next five years it's gonna be the majority, probably what's sold, because, think about it, those of us that are on the Facebook page we're the lawn care nerds, right, we're the nerds, we're the ones wanting to get out there, but most people don't right most my neighbors, or right most of the chore there has to be done right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my next door neighbors an older lady, elderly lady who pays somebody a hundred and fifty dollars a week and or every two weeks to come mow her lawn. And these mowers are expensive. But the Luba of five thousand which does an acre and a quarter, cost around twenty, eight, twenty nine hundred dollars. But at a hundred and fifty dollars every two weeks I mean she's been hating that much because she has an acre. But that's three hundred dollars a month she's paying. It wouldn't take long to pay for itself. There's a lot of room for improvement on these. Right now Let me the hardware is great, the software is Coming along. I think in the next few years it will be the primary thing that people that view the lawn as a chore will be purchasing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe some of the enthusiasts if we can get it to mow lower. Yes, put some stripes on it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, it will strike, unless something I should say I should have brought up. It won't strike to the degree that a real mower will, but it does leave some strikes. This thing mows back and forth in a straight line. You can change the angle right and change up the pattern. You can even do a diamond pattern with this thing. So it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's yeah. That's really awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds like that's the way to go. It frees up a lot of time.
Speaker 4:It does. It saves me About three hours a week. Yeah, so that, and that's not that I'm not doing lawn stuff, because now I'm doing the other stuff that I've been putting off right, yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 1:That frees up time to to be working on the, the weeding and the fertilizing and and all of that stuff, that and Aeration and sand leveling. You know it gives you extra time for all that.
Speaker 4:So, and I think, even with the robot more, you still have a need for other mowers because you can't scalp with the robot, right? It won't even go below 1.2 inches, right? So I can't scalp with it, so I will still have my mowers. Also, it won't pick up anything. So since it's not a rotary blade, there's no suction like on a regular rotary lawnmower. So you know, come pick up the leaves that have dropped, or yeah, or even this is the dead grass, if you let it go a little too long and it's cutting it low.
Speaker 4:It'll cut it, but it's just gonna leave it there on the lawn, so I use my. I've been using my ride mowers, a giant vacuum cleaner here lately. Just to pick up the the dead stuff on the grass.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. I'll be very interested. I'm very interested in seeing what you think of it after yeah and don't get me wrong, I love doing the lawn and I love mowing the lawn.
Speaker 4:I've always enjoyed it. I've been doing it since I was 12. But I'm also a technology geek, right, which you know very well. I enjoy the technology. I enjoy playing with it and figuring it out. I have a higher tolerance than most people for the quirks of technology. I will tell you, it's a little quirky still. The app is a little quirky and I'll be covering all this in that video at some point, but it's probably not why ready for everybody just to go adopt. But if you, if you have a tolerance for figuring things out and you enjoy it, then you might enjoy it. I tell you the thing hasn't got stuck in the lawn anywhere. My biggest issue has just been Mapping the lawn and my own. Everything has been me trying to figure it out right and it's not as intuitive as I would like on the app. So it's just been trial and error and me figuring out.
Speaker 4:So it's nothing to do with the mower, necessarily, it's just the app could be a little bit more intuitive and opening the gate, yeah. I'm opening the gate for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get it to do that on its own, and good yeah.
Speaker 4:I see you. I see in the future a business model of, instead of having a landscaper come out and mow your lawn, a Landscaper comes by, drops one off, hooks it up, maps your lawn for you and comes by monthly to check on it for you. That's probably where it's going. You know, when he comes by monthly, he could probably do the edging at that time, because you could get away with edging once a month.
Speaker 4:Especially if you're mowing every other day with that right, yeah, and robot, I see that the future of lawn care, at least the professional lawn care business. I mean that would be ideal for my elderly neighbor who can't get out there and do it herself a lot a robot lawn mower. If she was paying half, you know, 150 a month to have this service Be a lot cheaper than what she's paying to have somebody physically come out there, I could absolutely see a market for this. Very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be more to come on that, I'm really interested. So are we ready to do some facebook shoutouts?
Speaker 4:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:Who do you got today? We have Eric Baker. So this is uh. Eric Baker said that he got his writer out today for preparation Of tomorrow's cut. Before vacation pre-cut before the cut, which is pretty funny yeah.
Speaker 4:And we've all done that a kid.
Speaker 1:A couple houses down came and asked to borrow. Yeah, his leaf blower, and then he asked to borrow the string trimmer and then offered to pay him to Borrow stuff to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, string trim, which was kind of ridiculous for a kid to offer that but, yeah, and these 10 years old, his parents are separating and uh, now cutting the grass is this kid's responsibility, and so he's, eric says. When I was 10 year 10, I wasn't this interested in lawn care stuff. It's crazy that I'm having my grass conversations with a 10 year old. I don't know, I really don't have a post here, but I think that's an awesome post.
Speaker 4:It is awesome post, eric, and I did comment on this post and just shoot me your address, some of your address and a dm. I'll send you and him both a bld sticker and and it's awesome that you're taking the time to visit with this kid and talk about lawn care and it gives him a great, gives him somebody to look up to and to talk to. He probably needs that mentor right now and with his family and stuff going on. So it's great. I appreciate that you put that post out there. Eric.
Speaker 1:Is really refreshing to see and then our next one is will Palmer. So he and then I I added this one because this is really Relevant to what we're talking about today. So he bought three acres, um, he's putting in, uh, hybrid Bermuda, and he's asking what's the best cutting rotary blower? Um, I just don't feel like mowing. Real mowing three acres is in the cards.
Speaker 4:No, you don't want a 20 inch mower, right, exactly, yeah, three acres for sure.
Speaker 1:That would take you all day long. Maybe type to start bowing at the front again once you stop, yeah, when you finish that, yeah, and so, uh, he got several responses, lots of feedback on this and, um, um, he actually showed which one he was getting, which is a very nice lawnmower. It's a Walker, uh, b 27 I. It's a very nice professional. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but you know, for other people who maybe are also curious about options, in this case I have a John Deere, I think it's the E 780, I think is what it is.
Speaker 4:What it has four scoping wheels on it and it works very well for Bermuda. How to? A doc had talked about this, particularly about using a rotary lawnmower for your A ride mower, and this was one of the ones. He suggested anything with four scoping wheels, though a lot of these riding mowers Only have two scoping wheels, so the back of it is just dragging or not dragging, but it's looking upset lower. But if you have those four scoping wheels it'll keep you much more level, much more level, and take some time leveling that deck and keeping your blade sharp. You can do just fine with with a riding mower. Now You're gonna have to mow a little higher because that deck is so big. It'll it'll hover over the high areas and no scalp if you're not careful, if you don't mow high enough. But I've used it by backyard for several years at about two inches and it looks great. Yeah, yeah, I sure wouldn't want to be walking three acres.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he also added to everyone that recommended a Triplex real mower. I don't want the headache that comes with owning one.
Speaker 4:They are maintenance intensive Sure a lot less maintenance.
Speaker 1:Have you get a riding lawnmower? And like skip skip said, I mean uh will got a very, very nice mower. Yeah, it looked really nice. Wouldn't be in my budget. There's there's options out there for every budget and. And he got several good recommendations From the group to.
Speaker 4:I appreciate everybody taking the time to encourage each other and help with those types of decisions, and it's great that you're sharing your experiences and asking the questions too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you don't find your question out there, then ask it. Yeah, someone else is probably wondering the same thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's no dumb question. Somebody mentioned that today on the facebook group. There are no dumb questions. We have answered probably most of the questions that come up not us necessarily, but somebody has answered them. So you can often search and find the answer on the facebook group. But if not, just ask the question, people are very helpful. It's a very inclusive community and you know, we often think of of the men that do in the lawn, but there are a lot of women in our group.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:And I shout out to all of those ladies that are out there taking care of the lawns and finding out more about it we haven't forgot you. We know that you're out there and we appreciate you too and appreciate that you're there. This is not a men only club.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a lawn care nerd club is all it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we appreciate you. We love lawns and this is a group for you. Absolutely Be sure, and join us for our next episode, where we're covering pest control, shaded area problems and we'll talk about how to get your lawns striped.
Speaker 4:Those will sound like some great topics. Thanks for joining us everybody. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us on this episode of the BLD podcast. We hope you enjoyed our lawn care discussions and the lawn beer of the week. Remember, as we sip and tend to our lawns, let's get greener together. Keep mowing, keep sipping and keep dominating those lawns. Until next time, stay green and cheers.
