OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Lawn Care & Maintenance lawn pics

gents, thought I would ask the question. We all like to see pics of our SB restos & rebuilds etc but what a bout seeing some of the fantastic results we get with our Scotty's. I know in summer my lawn is the best in the street with very defined lines no one elses compares, so what about posting some pics of our lawns?? (after all, isnt that why we use cylinder mowers- for the great results??)When the grass begins to grow a little I will post some pics of my lawn. cheers

Hi rossf, I think the main reason we don't see many pics of our members lawns, is that many of us live in areas that are still in drought conditions....for example, I live in Wagga Wagga and we have water restrictions in place at present that preclude the use of my in-ground sprinkler system, and the only thing that seems to be surviving is the weeds. I think no one would like to see photos of patches of bare ground.
You are lucky living in QLD, especially if you don't have water restrictions.

No probs Deejay,up until say 8-12 months ago we were the same in SE QLD. Water restrictions & thats why I went back to rotary mower. (we were even expected to take 4 minute showers...lol!) Now that all dams are full & we have had and are having some good rain I am goping to get my lawn back the way it should be. Fyi, I have QLD blue couch & to be honest, it loves the cylinder mower & appears couch is right at home with this type of mower...
cheers - Ross

Hi rossf, yes mate, I envy you there, I wish I could grow blue couch here in Wagga, but our climate just doesn't suit, so kikuyu is the grass that seems to flourish down here.
You are absolutely correct about blue couch loving a cut with a cylinder mower....it almost seems a marriage made in heaven, eh!

I have a yard that is beginning to look fantastic, just need to wait for the small bare patches to fill in. As with darryl I have kikuyu it seems to come up really good with a 4 blade victa mulching disc on a standard victa mower.

Hi guys,here in wentworth on the murray/darling,we have no restrictions having two water meters.1 is town filtered water the other meter is water out of the murray before it hits s.a.i might post some pics of victa cut grass(no patches)...ken

good one Ken, send em in ..maybe we can have a competition as to who has the best looking lawn as voted by the members??

cheers- Ross

Hi Rossf,
I am about to install an irrigation system and lay new turf. I am tossing up between Plateau Couch and Aussie Blue Couch which is a new cultivar of Qld Blue. The reason for Plateau is that it is a laterally (sideways)growing grass and requires much less mowing though believe best results are achieved when cylinder mowed. I have 600 squares of cylinder mowing to do so I am leaning towards the Plateau as the Aussie Blue Couch will require much more frequent mowing at optimal growth periods.

I too live in SE QLD, have a 22k litre water tank and a bore. So water won't be a problem here nor will the climate..
Cheers, Craig.

Hi to All,
This thread had gone off topic, in the interest of good forum housekeeping, I have edited and re-posted the further replies in the relevant forum "Scott Bonnar Model 45.... 20" Rebuild.

[quote=mower man]Hi guys,here in wentworth on the murray/darling,we have no restrictions having two water meters.1 is town filtered water the other meter is water out of the murray before it hits s.a.i might post some pics of victa cut grass(no patches)...ken

Mowed the grass today front and back,so here are some pics of country grass.i have put them in photo gallery,cant put them on here ?

It has rained virtually non stop for 2 weeks now in Bris with the last few days absolutely torrential!!. Looking forward to cutting the grass with my (partial) newly restored Scotty, but I cant cut it. When I do will take some pics & post here. I'm sure after all of this rain it will look quite nice.

Ross

Hi Ross, Yeah mate, it rained all the time we were on our holiday in Brisvegas, looks like we left it up there for you!!

I did have a pic of our back yard nice and green with the edges done watered afew times a week with bore water etc, but since we are only renting and want out of here ASAP we dont bother much anymore, we just do the lawns when they need doing.

Hi fellas. With all the rain of late (and on & off for some time) in Bris, thought I would send some pics of my grass. I'm still not 100% happy with it as it still has a couple of patches & needs to be top dressed etc, but it will do for now. Also a couple of pics of my recently partially restored (not the engine) Scotty. After I ironed the bugs out, she goes like a ripper, starts first pull most times. I set the reel myself & it hums beautifully whilst spinning

What do you think?

Cheers Ross

Well the grass is way out of my league - you may need to get a greenkeeper to comment on that. The mower looks excellent - I can't comment on the colour match because I don't know what it should look like.

What a brilliant job on the grass (my kids and myself want to know how to make the stripes)and a good resto job...ken

Hi Ken, thanks. I am not an expert, but I think much depends on the type of grass? I have QLD blue couch & I think it is right at home with a cylinder mower. Simply mowing in alternate directions will give you the stripes. In a nutshell the weight of the cylinder mower flattens the grass in one direction & mowing the opposite direction flattens the grass the other way & when the light/sunshine hits the blades of grass, you get the striped effect. As far as maintenance of the my lawn, really, I have been slack. I do bugger all- havent watered for months & have not fertilised either. As I mentioned in the last post though I need to top dress to get all of the lumps & bumps out of it. (My son says I am obsessed with it.. ha ha) If you have a cylinder mower (and the right grass type) you should have no probs. However, perhaps there are other grass types that are at home with a cylinder mower also? If you have uneven or long grass you may not achieve quite the same results.

As far as the resto, attached is a pic of what my Scotty looked like before I painted etc.

Cheers Ross

Hi Ross and what a ripper of a lawn. on a fantastic job on both the lawn and your Scotty.... the colour match is close as well, and its doing a great job.
Don't forget to change direction each time you mow, ie. straight up and down, (as you have done) then next time diagonal in one direction then the opposite direction the next time....It helps level the lawn and keeps the lawn healthy and maintains good growth.
Once again

yeah thanks Deejay. I may try the diagonal pattern next time.

cheers , Ross

No probs Ross, from the pics I can see you've really got your Scotty sorted....Well done that man!!

This is my lawn that I have been mowing with a victa imperial 14" for the last month or so. I can't belive the difference a cylinder mower makes!!!

I have just bought a 20" scotty so will be able to do the rest of the yard with it to. Pic one and two have been mowed with the cylinder for a bit over a month and the third photo is of the bottom that has only been done twice.

No stripes yet but not to sure why but I think I would prefer that it doesn't get them.

Cheers BDA

looking good BDA, yes you cant beat a cylinder mower I reckon. Re the stripes,yes personal choice I guess. I used to play allot of soccer and watch allot of English soccer on TV when I was a young fella & always wanted grass like pitches over there, hence my grass as it looks now. Gives me an interest and someting to do besides kids all of the time.
Cheers Ross

Hi BDA and rossf, the choice of a striped lawn is not an optional feature if you use a correctly set-up cylinder mower...It comes with the territory, so to speak.
What is occurring during the cut is initially the front roller, and has 2 functions; it controls the height of cut and it lays down the grass in front of it, which then causes the grass to spring up in the path of the front edge of the bed-knife blade and then precision scissor cut by the rotating cylinder reel.

It then is immediately rolled flat again by the weight of the machine on the rear roller.
This then has the mowed strip with the grass laying down in one direction. When you mow in the opposite direction the grass is laying down opposite to the first pass....causing the lawn stripes.
You can get the same effect on a pile carpet with a vacuum cleaner....

BDA, the reason your lawn is not striping much now can be the result of the lawn, which has previously been cut by a rotary mower will be getting used to being cylinder mown, and will soon settle in to being manicured. Another reason may be the cylinder to bed-knife adjustment, or it could mean time for a reel and bed-knife sharpen.

Don't worry if you don't like the stripe effect, once you water the lawn or just naturally the grass stands up again, the stripes will tend to disappear...
Personally, I like the effect, it makes your lawn stand out in the street...and I like the guy next door trying to get the same effect with his rotary!!

Thanks guys I still have a long way to go but really happy so far

Well I know for a fact that the cylinder and bedknife are blunt on the victa so you might be on to something there deejay.

Please tell me you don't try and get the carpet stripes going

On the stripes disappearing, do they only stay for a day or so after mowing???

Also now when I look at the photos I can just make out the stripes in there.

Hi BDA, and no, I don't try and get the carpet stripes effect going.... I was just trying to explain that carpet pile reacts in a similar way to grass when moved in different directions.
As for how long the effect lasts, a lot depends on the type of grass, and the moisture content also would most probably be a factor, and of course the machine itself, with weight and cutting height.

My lawn is kikuyu, and the stripes last about 2 days.

rossf - that is looking tops mate! QLD Blue Couch is the bomb IMHO.

I use an SB 17" Mod 45 and have QLD Blue Couch.

My stripes are very apparent for 1-2 weeks and then fade out after that if I don't mow. Different grasses will take the stripes to different degrees. The broader the leaf and longer the grass, the less of a stripe/shorter stripe retention you will get. If you don't want stripes at all with a cylinder, you could mow the yard in one direction, but this is very tedious because you have to drag to mower back to the start of every run.

Generally, I mow 1-2 times a week in summer and then once a week the rest of the year. In winter, I may drop back to fortnightly if it gets really cold (by QLD standards) because it is just a waste of fuel to get one catcher worth of clippings from mowing ~700m2 of grass.

I posted the following in my Intro thread, but here is is again on how I care for my lawn...

I fertilize 2-3 time a year with urea (which gives a lot of extra leaf growth) and let that have a week or so to get kicked off - you know it has because the grass grows ~1" every 2 days so you have to mow 3 times a week! Once it has kicked off, I spray it with a growth retardant which slows the long blade growth so you only have to mow once a week, but it makes the grass really thicken up.

The only watering I do is when I apply the urea - if you don't, you will burn your whole yard - I normally fertilize in the pissing down rain so I don't have to water. Other than that, the only care it gets is mowing, broad leaf weed/target weed spraying for nut grass or mullumbimby as required, spray for lawn grubs as required - both of which isn't very often. Luckily no bindii yet. Because the grass is so short and thick, most weeds just don't have a snowflakes chance in hell of establishing. The blue couch has also taken over most of the footpath out the front of one of the neighbours places too - green couch just doesn't handle the constant short cutting.

The other things is you should raise you cut height a bit now for the colder months too...not too much...I find 3-4mm is plenty. Just give the couch a bit more leaf for the shorter days of sun.

I only change direction of mowing when the grass starts to develop as 'wave' in the cut - this happens maybe 3-4 times a year. It is like rolling pastry, if you keep rolling back and forth in one direction, you will start to get 'waves' which are an uneveness in the thickness. Easily fixed by mowing at 90 degrees to you normal cutting direction for 1 or two mows - and you end up with checkerboard patterns. The only other time I mow in a different direction is if I want to change the pattern to checkers or diamonds - I would normally only do this if I have a daytime BBQ at my place...always gets the praise going.

I generally don't top dress, but now that the grass is well established and after all the rain during summer, there are a few little dips and bumps I would like to smooth out. I have used a sandy loam before and was rather unimpressed by it. Steve Jones Landscaping in Brisbane has the most amazing top dressing I have ever scene/used. It is a bit more expensive, but it contains heaps of organic matter. I used a meter of it after running some ag pipe and drains in my back yard during summer when the summer rain highlighted some drainange issues, and it made the grass it was applied to go totally ballistic!

With the cooler weather now, my grass has dropped of from its best significantly and this is only over the period of ~1 month. I will take some pics after I mow on the weekend.


Ben.

Looking good bdaearth...especially around the house.

The bottom level looks like it could do with a fert once the weather warms up again.

Ben.