The Flymo Multimo 420XC is a 4 wheel 42cm cut mower and features a roller between the rear wheels for striping. It has a metal blade, 15 metre cable and 50 litre grass box, and large rear wheels for extra manoeuvrability. It also features an easy fit mulch plug for use when not collecting, and an easy reel system for neat and tidy storage
Getting rid of those pesky weeds in your front yard can be a real headache, there’s a huge temptation to buying a really powerful weed killer. You pull them over and over again but they just keep coming back. My young son makes some handy cash by clearing my lawn of dandelions by pulling them up, of course the next day they’re back all over my lawn again again! It can also be very frustrating to buy a product that is supposed to obliterate the weeds but the little devils just seem to be invincible. There are a few tips that homeowners should know before they spend a fortune on weed killers that just do not do the job.
One mistake that some people make is that they believe granular weed killers will work better than liquid products. In fact, liquid weed killers can cover an area more thoroughly than the granular forms. You can also more effectively do spot treatments of lawn weeds with liquid products. It is important to note that putting a heavier dose of the weed killer on your weeds is not going to be more effective at killing the weeds. It is just going to be effective at killing your pocketbook.
Another mistake some homeowners make is that they do not read the labels of the weed killers they buy. Some products may start to work in a few hours and some may not work for a few days. Many weed killers need to stay on the weed for 24 hours without rain or irrigation. The label should also clarify what exactly the product will kill. You don’t want to spray your lawn with weed killer and then wake up the next morning to find you have no lawn at all. If you have pets, then you also need to especially look out for weed killers that may be harmful to them.
Many homeowners do not realize that weed killers that can be classified as “pre-emergence herbicides” and “post-emergent herbicides.” Pre-emergence herbicides work well on crabgrass and can be applied a few weeks before weeds are expected. Post-emergence herbicides are used for perennial broadleaf weeds and are used after the weeds have emerged.
Timing is very important when it comes to the application of pre-emergence herbicides. If these weed killers are applied too early, then weather will dilute them and weeds will go ahead and grow anyway. Timing is also important when it comes to using post-emergence herbicides. If you procrastinate with your weeds, then they will just become more of a problem and spread throughout your lawn.
In addition to buying chemicals and powerful weed killers that can wipe out weeds, homeowners should also look into products that will help their lawns flourish. A thick lawn can actually shade out weeds. It is recommended that you keep your lawn mowed at about three inches to shade the weeds. Weak spots in a lawn can be places where weeds will thrive. Nourishing your lawn with a good fertilizer can help your beautiful grass battle back the weeds.
Homeowners should not let weeds frustrate them. They are just a part of landscaping and gardening. With a little research, and perhaps a little patience, homeowners can get to the root of their weed problems and find the right solution.
Flymo’s Hover Compact 300, the revolutionary hover mower that collects as you mow on a cushion of air. Making mowing easier and more efficient, this hover mower is ideal for giving your lawn a neat and tidy finish in the shortest possible time, leaving you more time to relax and enjoy your garden.The powerful 1400 watt motor spins at 4,300 rpm, making easy work of your lawn. Your Hover Compact 300 has 4 heights of cut (10 – 30 mm) and a 30 cm cut with a metal blade.The 30 litre… Buy Flymo Hover Compact 300 Electric Hover Mower at Amazon
I like wildlife, in fact although I live on a housing estate, the reason I moved here was it is next to a very old wood and a National Trust property and we get loads of wonderful birds. Anyway here is my story of how operation Cat Repel started. I am hopeless at identifying birds, I get all of them mixed up and that coupled with my diminishing eyesight means that I suspect my contribution to the RSPB survey this year might be flawed – but hey at least I tried.
But I also like other animals, but peering through the window yesterday I noticed a rather lack of birds despite my grand birdie breakfast laid out. On investigation I discovered a large, fat cat named after a famous footballer (name withheld to protect my identity) You see our garden is a bit of a suntrap, so animals who like to sunbathe, tend to lounge around our back garden which is fine, except for a card carrying member of the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds creating a bird killing zone is rather distressing.
So Operation Cat Repel was put into operation and I asked around to try and discover some humane way of repelling our feline friends at least from my back garden. I tried the water pistol method, but that never worked with the squirrels and had a similar effect with the cats. Anyway some suggested this device was a good idea- it’s called the Big Cheese
What it does is emit an ultrasonic sound whenever it detects movement of a large cat sized animal. The detection is infra red and works in a beam 12 metres in length and a 98 degree angle. Cats definitely do not like this! Humans are not really supposed to hear the sound but I’m afraid I could slightly, it’s not much of a problem though and not all can hear it, my wife says she can’t.
Cat Repel Device
It really is very effective, the downsides are you can go through the little 9 volt batteries but investing in rechargeable ones would do that. I do wonder how much more it would have cost to make this solar charged as it’s going to be outside all the time. If you need to repel cats from your garden it does work, although one of the difficulties I found was putting it in the right spot, this of course depends on your garden and layout. You might find you need to buy a few of these units if you have a big garden Overall the Big Cheese Cat Repel device is worht investigating – there’s hundreds of other reviews – Big Cheese reviews here if you want check them out
If you’re a gardener, there are lots of ways you can reduce our impact on the environment. The great thing is that most of these tips actually can save you money as well, so heres a few environmental tips for gardeners – thanks to the National Trust for many of these.
Saving Water – add between 5-10cm of much to beds and containers. This cuts down evaporation significantly and means you can water much lees often. Obviously it also helps keep out those pesky weeds. When we’re talking about watering your plants please try and collect rainwater, it’s actually much better for your plants and it doesn’t cost anything.
You can even now get water butts or bigger tanks with integrated pumps although it’s usually cheaper to buy a water butt and then purchase a cheap pump seperately. The water butts don’t have to cost much, here’s a nice slimline one from Amazon for about £20 – 100 Litre Slimline Water Butt Stand & Tap Kit
Environmental Tips Gardeners - Water Butt
If you line, porous wooden and terracotta containers with a lining such as plastic sheeting this will also cut down water loss. It’s surprising how moist the containers will keep with a little bit of sheeting to keep the water from draining away – but remember you do need some drainage holes at the bottom somewhere !
Always water in the evening if you possibly can, the evaporation loss can be quite substantial if you water in the hotter parts of the day. You can find you only need to water half as much if you do, also using a watering can is much more efficient than a hose, you’ll waste lots more water with a hose than you will using a watering can.
Any More Environmental Tips for Gardeners ?
There’s actually many more, mostly common sense ways to minimise your environmental impact with gardening. Reducing waste is obviously important, and the simplest way is to make your own compost, most organic matter is suitable so gather grass clippings, weeds, kitchen waste and shredded cardboard together to create your own compost.
Normally the best compost will be 50% green material and 50% woody material, use paper shredded up or sawdust even dried leaves to balance out the mixture if you need to. Also make sure that the compost remains moist.
But even if you are not able to create enough composts for your needs, make sure that you never but peat composts always buy peat free ones. Peat is extremely valuable to the environment actually locking away carbon and preventing it creating CO2 in the atmosphere, it shouldn’t be used in gardens as it takes hundred of years to replace each meter that is used for gardening.
REMEMBER DON’T BUY PEAT BASED COMPOSTS !!!!
I hope these environmental tips for gardeners are useful to you, I’ll publish some more on this blogs very soon.
Keep the bubbles blowin’ for a whole lotta mowin’. The all-new one-touch refill system features a bigger bubble dispenser for fewer fill-ups and a one-press no-mess refill. Just press it once and you’re good to go for a yard full of bubble fun. Bubble solution included.
Box Contains
1 x Bubble mower 1 x Bubble solution 1 x Instruction booklet
There are two main tools that give me loads of problems in my life, printers and lawnmowers and I really don’t know why. If I could I’d happily live without both of them but I can’t, well some of the year I can’t! It’s time now to bring out the lawnmower and do you know what for once I don’t mind as I’ve finally found a decent one – the Bosch Rotak 40 Electric Mower.
I don’t really want a lot from a lawnmower but that’s exactly what I’ve got over the years. I’ve been down the horror that is hover mowers, if you’ve travelled that road you will commiserate I’m sure. I’ve also spent a fortune on big, well built lawnmowers even though I hardly have a huge sized garden – my latest lawnmower in that area is a petrol driven Hayter which set me back several hundred pounds. It does cut the grass well, or should I say did cut the grass well – my wife who could never start the huge thing, pointed out a small little tear in the rubber next to the primer – which is enough to make sure it now never starts for me also.
I did start the detective work trying to find a supplier willing to sell me this small rubber bulb thing for some extortionate amount but in the end just got fed up. I just want a mower that is quick light and simple, something that requires little maintenance and just cuts the grass.
So step forward my latest try and finding such a lawnmower.
Bosch Rotak 40 Rotary mower
The first thing you’ll notice with some dread is the enormous box that it arrives in, fortunately this is quite deceiving as really the Bosch Rotak 40 isn’t actually that big. In fact it’s actually quite light when you do extract it from the huge amount of cardboard – I had mine delivered but I can imagine it would be a struggle to get in a small car in the box!
It does take a little putting together, the grass box is a little fiddly to clip together but nothing too difficult. When you look at the finished item, the initial impression I have to say its plastic, and a slight worry that it looks a little flimsy. Will the Bosch Rotak 40 be able to survive a few summers of grass cutting is initially a worry.
Bosch Rotak 40 in Action
Well there’s not much to tell really, the cord is plenty long enough in my average sized garden even without an extension, it really is very light and you can move it around as easily if not more so than a vacuum cleaner. Being so light you can easily pick it up to avoid obstacles or if you have an odd shaped lawn. A task that was not possible with my cast iron hayter mower I can tell you.
The rotary blades cut quickly and efficiently, the little grass combs on the mower help force the grass back for a very low cut. The grass collection box, holds a surprising amount as it seems to compress the grass in the box, although it does need emptying a few times for most lawns I suspect. The blades seem to cut through everything, any length, leaves, weeds and it even cuts the grass quite easily when it’s damp although I’m not certain that’s a great idea.
It doesn’t actually feel like mowing the lawn, more like you’re running the hoover over it, you actually wouldn’t expect a great finish from the rotary blades in the Bosch Rotak 40 but it is surprisingly good and there are defined stripes which always look good on a lawn.
There is little to dislike, it cuts the lawn quickly and easily, you obviously need to be aware of the cord when mowing but it’s not too hard when you get used to it. It folds up pretty well and I hang it up in my shed. It cuts right up to edges very well and it cuts my average lawns in no time at all. You do have a worry about how well it will last as the majority is built from plastic, but in truth I’ve had mine for three years now and it is still going strong. At the time of writing it’s being sold for around about £125 which I think is a bargain. The Bosch Rotak 40 Electric Rotary Lawn mower is the mower for someone who just wants to cut their lawn quickly and easily, if you want more recommendations look at the reviews on the Amazon web site – here
Updated Links to the new Bosch Ergoflex model (basically the same but cheaper, with different handles)
10 comments - What do you think? Posted by
admin -
March 22, 2010 at 1:18 pm
If you’re growing a vegetable garden, the first year is always the problem. If you have very acidic soil, some plants won’t grow well while others will thrive. You might end up with tomatoes that line your counters and cover every surface in your house. In that case, you’ll want to buy a pressure cooker and some canning jars. Canning is a great way you can cause your garden to be very fruitful all-year-round. When choosing plants for your garden, tomatoes are always a good choice. You can make them into sauces, chop them up and can them or eat them raw. If you plant a variety of different tomatoes, they will have give you more variety. Try planting Roma in one row, cherry tomatoes in another and regular tomatoes in another.
Tomatoes should always work well for you no matter what soil you have. In the case of tomatoes, however, you should never try planning tomatoes from seeds. Some do, but it’s far more beneficial if you purchase ‘flats’ of tomatoes. That means that they’ve been grown until they’re about three-inches tall. Then, you transplant those tomato plants to the garden. Insects love tomato plants, though. Cutworms are a problem, so if you’re in an area of the country which has them, you’ll have to put something as a wall which keeps the worms from eating the plants. If you cut both ends off a tin can, then you can push that can into the soil, then transplant the tomato plant in the middle of the can. The depth of the can beneath the soil is the main thing.
The Black cutworm and the variegated cutworm are the two most common species which damage your garden. Since they feed at night, they generally won’t be noticed in the daylight. Other plants which can be damaged by cutworms are celery, onions, pepper plants, eggplant, rutabaga, carrots, sweet corn and several others such as beans. If your plants are lying on their side in the morning, you’re having problems with cutworms; but even if they aren’t, cutworms might be the culprit. They go down about 5 cm in the ground, or 2 inches. Thus, your tin can or waxed milk carton should go about 3 inches down.
Other vegetables which give good yield are peppers. Again, plant many different varities of peppers such as many different types of Chile peppers as well as typical green peppers. Peppers can also get attacked by insects, so make sure you put a protecting can which encircles their stem as well. They start out as a little green bud, then grow bigger. Insects go for the leaves rather than the peppers themselves, but since peppers can be harvested the whole summer, you’ll want the plant to thrive without dying.
Corn is always a difficult one to raise. You can try them, but realize that every one of those little strands that go down the inside of a corn husk is how each kernel gets pollinated. If a kernel isn’t pollinated, then your corn will have large sections on the cob where it will be bare. Also, many different insects like corn, it being so sweet to eat. Try corn in one row, at first, then if it does well, expand. The thing is, when choosing plants for your garden, experiment. The first year is always the hardest.
Hope you enjoyed this gardening article, remember to check out the latest news on our website dedicated to the best lawnmower reviews
