It’s late Friday afternoon and you’ve heard just about everyone at work, work their round of saying “Thank goodness it’s Friday!” and laying out their awesome weekend plans for this coming weekend.
You, on the other hand, have work to do around the yard first thing Saturday morning. The cool thing? You actually like cleaning up your yard! It’s a pretty damn cool feeling seeing a well-maintained yard to come home to every day. But a well-groomed yard doesn’t just get groomed on its own. Just a like a great barber, a homeowner should have at least these three tools of the trade in their house to keep that yard in tip-top shape.
The 3 Lawn Care Tools Every Homeowner Should Own
This goes without saying, but nothing will get down without a lawnmower. The lawn mower you choose will be the number one tool in your arsenal to keep your lawn nice and properly maintained. Now you gotta pick wisely here with so many options out there. You got self-propelled for you guys out there that’s cardio conditioning has gone way downhill since you the days of you finishing the 1 mile run in high school in 7 minutes and 30 seconds, and basically, need the mower pulling you around instead of you pushing it. Goes without saying though, those self-propelled mowers are always a bit more pricey.
Then you got regular, plain old gas-powered push mowers. These are the norm and are priced affordably that even a kid down the street has bought one to start his own mowing service. If you got a normal sized lawn and it’s on flat ground, this is the way to go.
For all you pajama wearing, tree hugging, and skinny jean wearing boys out there, they also got some of the electric plug-in mowers and battery powered mowers. These are fine too and work great for those individuals that have a hell of a time get the gas to oil mixture ratio just right. Just plug em in and go to town! Just be careful not to chop up the cord.
There are also those old-school push mowers that are just human powered. What is this? The middle ages? Avoid those things! Those are for punishing teenagers who stay out too late and drink cheap beer with their pals.
Every Homeowner Should Have This Lawn Tool
You have to have a trimmer. Also referred to as a weed whacker or weed eater. How else are you gonna trim those edges along your lawn? You’ll also need a damn good trimmer with some real “oomph!” and not one of them sissy electric ones. You’re going to have to trim deep into the grooves of the lawn edges and this means hitting a little bit of dirt. I go into some good detail on how to trim and edge your lawn here. You’ll need to trim around bushes and tree too to make sure everything looks fantastic.
These things always run and gas and oil mixtures. Don’t be a wuss and stress about not being able to mix it just right. There’s direction right on the oil packaging for crip’s sake! You also got youtube.
The Last Lawn Tool Homeowners Should Own
So, you’ve cracked open a beer late Saturday afternoon. You’ve fired up your self-propelled mower and made some sweet looking lawn lines on your lawn. You’ve fired up your gas trimmer and edged the edges so sharp and straight that you can lay a laser pointer along the lines just to prove to your buddies just how straight your lines are. Everything looks great except there are crap and debris everywhere!
This is where a good blower comes in. You need it to finish up the work and who wants to push a broom around? You just finished the yard work and got a second beer waiting for you and you need to sweep? The hell with that! Blow it all away! For these things, I’d recommend an electric blower. Why electric? Because you will hardly be running this thing long. Plug it in with an extension cord and blow everything off in about 3 minutes. Why waste more of your gas and oil on something you’ll run 3 minutes a week. Get electric. It’s the way to go.
Special thanks to our boys at The Pro’s Lawn and Garden in Paso Robles, CA for the tips on this post. You can visit their services at http://www.pasorobleslawncare.com