Had I listened to the naysayers, my friends and colleagues included, I would have been gearing myself up for a life spent hunting for perimeter wire breaks, changing spinning blades, unclogging the mechanism, replacing batteries, fixing electrical shorts, etc. etc.
In fact, the Husqvarna (sold also under the Gardena and Flymo brands) robotic lawnmower that I have has required less corrective maintenance than the old walk behind Briggs & Stratton powered mower that I still haven't had the heart to throw away.
That mower had issues ranging from a continuous problem with the traction drive belt (it's a heavy thing, and having it pull itself was a very desirable feature!) to a blade that was nearly impossible to take off, sharpen, and once put back never spun evenly, threatening to tear the engine off the plastic chassis!
Next to these issues, replacing the wheels when one began to fall apart, and regular blade replacement fade into the background, and both tasks are extraordinarily easy to complete. No expensive over-wintering costs, either, or replacing the engine oil, or any other of the messy jobs that you usually associate with lawn mower ownership.
However; there are a few things that I've noticed in the last three years, and are worth pointing out.
No More Moles!
The first thing that comes to mind goes back to a comment to a comment that I made back in 2014: to do with rodents eating the wire. At the time, one of my readers had pointed out that his Honda robotic lawnmower was suffering because foxes were eating through the guide wire.
My answer was to bury it deeper, thereby protecting it from ground level interference, but not from moles, which I also assumed would find the wire from time to time.
How wrong can you be?
It turns out (and this is just anecdotal - if anyone can back it up I'd be interested to hear their stories) that the number of moles in the lawn area, as evidenced by the (lack of) molehills has dropped to pretty much zero.
We used to have an issue with moles, and in the past I'd even installed one of those mole stop devices which send a subterranean pulse to warn the little blighters off, but it broke and never got replaced.
Needless to say, the moles came back.
With the robotic lawnmower installed, however, they seem to have gone away again. I know they're in the area, because the field has been attacked, as have the neighbours' lawns (albeit to a lesser extent than before), but within our perimeter wire -- nothing.
There's a couple of explanations I can think of:
- the irregular noise of the mower mowing creates vibrations (like the mole stop devices) that scare them away, or;
- the electric fields made by the perimeter wire and guide wire are keeping the moles at bay.
Either way, the lawn looks better for not having any mole hills, and being greener thanks to the continuous mulching that tales place thanks to the mower's regular operation and small cutting length.
The Grass is Greener on All Sides
Just a small note here, but we have noticed an improvement (and being smart after the fact I wish I'd taken photos!) in the quality of the lawns. They are greener and more lush, presumably down to the mulching.
My walk-behind mower actually had a mulching blade fitted because I'm pretty lazy and didn't want to have to (a) empty the grass box somewhere, and (b) dispose of the grass. So, I just let the blade spin, reduce the grass clippings to dust, and let them fall where they were.
However, for this to be effective you need to mow the lawn every few days in the summer; especially because, a bit like hair, if you cut it regularly and take care of it, a lawn tends to grow faster!
Did I mention that I was lazy?
I'll admit it: to the cynic, this sounds like an expensive anti-mole and auto-mulching device, but the net effect is a healthier lawn that looks great.
My next project is to fit a couple of cameras so you can see it in action: you might even get to see it scare off a cat!
