Lawnmowers undoubtedly are one of the most important tools for caring for different types of manicured landscapes, lawns included. There are three main types of lawn mowers available in the market for your selection. These are cylinder, hover and rotary lawn mowers. But before settling for any of these lawn mowers, there are two main factors that need to be considered. These include:

• The size of your garden: The size of your garden needs to be put into consideration before purchasing a lawn mower, the type notwithstanding. As a general rule of the thumb, go for an electric or manual propelled mower if your garden is small to medium sized, and if large, petrol driven.

• Garden or lawn configuration: Large flat areas of a lawn should be mowed by a cylinder lawn mower as it gives the cleanest cut. Gardens with awkward configuration and tight corners will greatly benefit from mowers that are easy to manoeuvre, for example the hover mower. The recommended general purpose lawn mower for all garden types is the rotary lawn mower.

Now let’s look at the three main types of lawn mowers in the market you can opt for.

Cylinder lawn mowers

This is the first type of a lawn mower to be invented and is mostly hand driven. They come with a series of blades that are fixed around a horizontal shaft that spins at high speeds to cut through the grass. A typical cylinder lawn mower comes with 5 or 6 adjustable blades that can be set very low to the ground to achieve a very fine cut.

The three types of available cylinder mowers in the market today are the petrol driven, electric propelled and the cheaply priced hand propelled varieties.

Hover mowers

Invented in 1964, the hover mower comes with a single blade that rotates at incredibly high speeds that lift it on a cushion of air. This same blade also does the cutting work. The main advantages of hover mower include:

• They are easy to manoeuvre due to the floating effect of the blade, making them the machine of choice for uneven and difficultly configured lawns.

• It is an excellent machine for cutting long and wet grass

There are two types of hover mowers – the petrol driven and electric powered types.

Rotary lawn mowers

These types of lawn mowers cut through the grass using horizontal rotating blades and are the perfect general purpose lawn maintenance machines. Simply put, rotary lawn mowers are perfect for dealing with bumpy, uneven ground conditions and will cut through the longest of the grass. They also cope very well with rough tuff compared to the best of the cylinder mowers. And because their blades are supported above the lawn by adjustable wheels, they can be adjusted to a given height to suit different cutting requirements, resulting in perfect clean cuts for a tidy finish. When a rear roller is added, it is a striped lawn effect is achieved. These lawn mowers are the cheapest among the three, making them very popular with gardeners around the country.

Note that rotary mowers are either electric powered to suit small gardens or petrol powered for larger lawns maintenance.