Tools for a Beautiful Lawn

Nothing equals grass as a soft place for children to play and as a rich green backdrop to showcase landscape plantings. But that beautiful surface is greedy for water, fertilizer, your time, and energy. Choose the right helpers to keep a lush lawn.

General Shopping Tips

When choosing tools for mowing, edging, repairing, aerating, and topdressing, durability is an important factor, as are ease of maintenance, convenience, and safety features. And select the right type of equipment for the size of your lawn:

• Homeowners with small lawns -- under 4,000 square feet -- can accomplish most of these maintenance jobs with a small assortment of hand tools. If you prefer the quiet and enjoy the exercise, hand tools also will save money. A manual mower, broadcast seeder, edger, and aerating tool work just fine. Use a lawn rake to spread organic material for topdressing in the fall or spring, and use hand grass clippers to clean up weedy patches along walls and fences.

• Medium lawns -- 4,000 to 10,000 square feet -- are generally too extensive for hand tools. A powered rotary mulching mower is faster, and a self-propelled version is easier. Fall mowings with this type of mower also provide your lawn with an organic topdressing -- chopped leaves -- if you have deciduous trees on your property.

• Large lawns -- over 10,000 square feet -- require even more sophisticated equipment. A large powered rotary mulching mower can do the job, but a riding mower may be more appropriate. The powered core-aerator, edger, and weed trimmer are essential.

Spreaders

For ease in storage, look for spreaders that will hang on a wall.

Types Available:

• Rotary spreader
  Rotary spreaders broadcast seed or granular fertilizer in a wide, circular pattern. When you push the spreader, a spinner -- under the hopper that holds the material -- rotates, throwing out the seed or granules at a rate regulated by a lever on the handle. To ensure uniform coverage, make vertical and horizontal passes over the area.

• Drop spreader
  Drop spreaders are useful for sowing grass seed, lime, or granular fertilizer precisely. The granules or seeds flow from a rectangular hopper in measured amounts in a row along its wheelbase. An adjustment on the handle alters the amount you dispense. With each pass across the lawn, this spreader evenly distributes the material in rows. It's perfect for lawns with straight edges but requires a careful pattern of passes so you don't leave any missed strips.

Edgers and Aerators

Edgers: Types Available

• Hand edger
  A hand edger consists of a sharp, straight-edged steel blade mounted at the end of a long wooden or Fiberglass handle. This English-style version has a rounded semicircular blade with a broad top edge that forms a tread for your foot. Place the tool along the edge of the turf where it meets pavement, then push the blade downward to cut a neat border.

• Electric edger
  An electric-powered edger is the most efficient way to edge long stretches of lawn along walks and driveways. If you have a large property or a lot of lawn that you want to keep perfectly edged, this tool's for you. When using a powered edger, you want to be aware of where any shallowly buried electric or water lines may lie -- a consideration if you have an in-ground irrigation system for the lawn. You don't want to cut any lines accidentally.

Features to Consider

Electric-powered edgers are available in corded and battery-powered models. Before choosing one, consider the length the electric cord would have to be to reach the nearest electrical outlet from the farthest area you will be edging.

Aerators:

Types Available

• Hand core-aerators
  Hand core-aerators consist of two or more hollow tines connected by a narrow, steel bridge that serves as a foot plate. A waist-high steel handle, topped by hand grips, attaches to the bridge. When you press your foot against the steel bridge, the 6-inch-long tines penetrate moist turf and fill up with a core of soil. Then when you withdraw them, each one leaves a narrow hole in the turf that admits air and moisture to the root area. Each time you press the tines into the turf, a soil plug pops out the top and lands on the lawn where it decomposes in the rain.

• Power core-aerating machines are usually something homeowners rent, not buy.
  On medium-sized lawns, you're better off renting a power core-aerator to do the job properly. To save money, consider splitting the cost of a weekend rental with a neighbor.

Mowers

Power mower

For the healthiest grass and most uniform cut, mow the lawn when it is dry. When it is damp with early-morning dew or wet from rainfall, blades don't cut cleanly, clippings clump, and any existing fungal disease will be tracked onto healthy lawn areas.

Types Available

• Manual (reel) mower.
  The old-fashioned lawn mower has been updated for modern times. It's now made of lightweight but sturdy materials -- most models feature pneumatic tires, easy blade-height settings, and handle-length adjustment. The horizontal blades on this type of mower always have given a superior cut. They are mounted on a reel that's geared within the wheel assembly, and they slice the grass against a lower, rigid bar. Spectacularly quiet and, of course, pollution-free, these manual mowers are especially useful for small lawns.

• Walk-behind power lawn mower.
  A gasoline- or electric-powered rotary lawn mower is appropriate for lawns over 4,000 square feet. (Some battery-operated models are available also, with capacity ton cut up to 2/3 acre on one charge.) If the lawn is configured as a large expanse, self-propelled models are particularly helpful. Today almost all power lawn mowers are designed as mulching mowers with a special blade and higher bell that suspends clippings long enough to be cut several times before they fall back into the grass as a mulch.

• Riding mower.
  The newest in gas or electric powered convenience offers cruise control, joystick steering, zero turning radius (meaning you can turn 360 degrees in one spot), and even cup holders. Most can pull a cart, which is useful for mulching and other gardening applications. Larger models often have enough power to handle areation, tilling, and snow-removal attachments, though residential models with the widest mowing decks (up to 48 inches) may have trouble clearing gates in a fenced area.

• Self-directed electric mowers.
  These mowers either follow a predetermined path along cables buried in the lawn or stay within an electronic or physical border, cutting the grass while you do other things. Some models have a recharging/docking station where the unit goes when battery power is low. At least one model is solar-powered.

Features to Consider

• Safety. Look for power mowers that instantly shut off the mower blade when you release the handle baffle.

• Maintenance. Make sure the blade is accessible so it can be removed for sharpening.

• Bagging attachments. In most cases, it's best to allow your grass clippings to fall onto the lawn rather than collect in a mower bag attachment.

• Mulching blades on modern power rotary mowers chop clippings into tiny pieces that fall among the grass blades and give the lawn a little extra moisture and nitrogen. The clippings don't cause thatch.

There are some instances, however, when it's really handy to have a bag attachment for your mower. For example, before you overseed a lawn, mow closely and catch the clippings so you don't have to rake them up to expose the bare soil. Moreover, if annual weeds, such as crabgrass, have formed seeds, a bag attachment will catch the seed heads along with the clippings and prevent self-seeding; throw the contents into the trash.