The First Cut of The Season !

Longer term Club Members will no doubt recall our late Chairman Tony Hopwood had a tradition of mowing on New Years Day with his early Dennis. Inspired partly by that, but also by the plain fact that I've been wanting to catch up with some mowing for a while, I took the opportunity of having a go today. Sadly grass and ground conditions precluded the use of a proper lawnmower so I had to resort to one of my ever reliable and forgiving Honda's.

This currently somewhat grubby example is an HR 2160 from 1992. Being only thirty years old it is not by my definition an old lawnmower so might be considered something of an imposter on this website. In fact Club Member Brian Radam of the British Lawnmower Museum would not class it as a lawnmower at all, merely a grasscutter. Too many wheels, too much plastic and only one blade. It is however a very good machine and one that I would recommend for early and late in the season when a proper lawnmower is less practical. ' The Season ' is of course these days much longer than it was historically, no doubt due, at least in part, to climate change.

I would not necessarily recommend mowing at this time of year; one needs the right conditions, and machine. The situation I have here though almost demands some winter mowing. If I were to leave it until the Spring the grass would be calf high and consequently more difficult to get on top of. Gardeners amongst you will observe that this is not a lawn situation, neither is it ever likely to be, rough grass is the order of the day. This area has been informally laid out for at least 130 years and the grass is very unlikely to have ever been properly levelled, prepared or laid. There is evidence of some sort of path surface under the grass, leading up to the front door. At this time of year we don't worry about neat edges, the object of the exercise is to remove the bulk. Edges are kept trimmed when the borders are looking at their best - if time permits !