CassetteP17S Most of us want to see those elegant traditional stripes on the grass when we’ve finished mowing. The Qualcast Suffolk Punch P17S Petrol Cylinder Mower will definitely not disappoint.

You’ll be able to sip you G&T proudly surveying the beautiful light and dark bands produced by this superb mower. It has no less than 5 pre-set cutting heights ranging from 10mm to 35mm, a 350mm (13.7 inch) cutting width, and that all important heavy steel roller at the back (it’s self-propelled too, so you won’t shed so much as a bead of sweat). The 144cc 4-stroke Tecumseh petrol engine runs on unleaded and the mowing is made delightfully easy by a three-way drive system.

It comes with Qualcast’s trademark QX cassette system, so you can remove the blade cartridge in a jiffy and replace it with a lawnraker cassette (supplied), which converts it into an excellent scarifier, too. And for under $1000, it’s a peach of a petrol mower.

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Whilst it’s nice to own a large lawn, especially when garden party and barbecue season beckons, the task of keeping it in good order can be a pain in the derriere. This is where the intelligently lazy man will turn to the world of automatic lawnmowers.

The Husqvan Automower 260 ACX is a most impressive addition to their already superb range of robotic gardeners. It’ll handle lawns of up to 3,000 square meters, whilst you put your feet up and watch the tennis. Designed to cope with complex and uneven lawn surfaces, its ultra-sonic detectors ensure it’ll never make any hard collisions, and it automatically wanders back to the charger when it needs topping up. It’ll even send you a text if in encounters a problem it can’t handle.

And its cutting edge anti-theft security technology will dissuade any light-fingered onlooker from attempting to run of with it (the alarm is enough to induce loss of bladder control).

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Anyone who even faintly cares about lawns will be wary of rotary mowers, which are inclined to butcher and savage rather than cut grass. If you can’t bring yourself to bludgeon your blades of grass with a rotary, you might want to take a look at the CEL CY1 POWERmow, a lightweight, easy to manoeuvre and, most impressively, cordless electric cylinder mower.

Its 16 inch (40cm) cutting width is ideal for small to average lawns, and the collapsible battery is extremely easy to remove for charging up. The stable front wheels and rear roller make for an exceptionally steady mow, and you can adjust the cutting height from 15mm – 50mm.

The battery power on a single full charge will easily cut up to 500 square meters. An LED warning light comes on when battery power is low, and it’ll break the circuit before anything can be damaged. It cuts like a dream and at approximately $325, it’s worth every penny.

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They may be a touch on the expensive side, but if you’ve got a lawn which you love to sit in but hate to mow, a robotic lawnmower may be the perfect investment. Forget all that weekend backache – just put an Electrolux in your garden. Not the vacuum cleaner, silly: the Automower.

It works by sensing the boundary wire which you’ll have stapled to the garden perimeter. And that stapling will be the last bit of lawn grafting you’ll need to do. The integral mulching system chews the clippings into tiny particles which simply decompose and feed your lawn.

It bounces back very sensitively from any obstacle, including pets and children, and it has a four digit code which you set yourself, making it useless to any light-fingered miscreant who attempts to swipe it. And it’s completely weather-proof – just programme it and forget it’s there. If only it could bring an afternoon aperitif to the patio, it would be faultless.

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For those of us with modest lawns, a modest mower is all we need (let’s face it, driving a sit-on tractor-style mower across a pocket-handkerchief lawn might look a little odd). You’ll find it hard to beat the Hayter Envoy 36. Designed specifically for smaller gardens, the 1400W electrically-powered Envoy has a cutting width of 14 inches and comes with a full-width rear roller to give your lawn those elegant stripes we all covet.

Whilst it looks as sturdy as you might expect from a Hayter, it also manages to appear rather stylish, with its smartly designed deck and high quality fabric bag. If you think a solid clippings box is better, think again: fabric bags allow air to flow through them during mowing, which increases the efficiency of the collecting. You can vary the cutting height from 13 to 60 mm and with retail price of between $270-300, it’s not going to break the bank.

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If you want to protect your lawn from the barbarism of rotary mowing but don’t fancy pushing a heavy manual or petrol cylinder mower around, you might like to try the G-Tech CM01 Cordless Cylinder Lawn Mower.

Weighing in at just 9kg, it’s solid, sturdy and simple. The adjustable handles can be set to anyone’s height, from the vertically challenged to the positively lofty, and the cylinder rotates at a speed of 1050 rpm, comfortably higher than many other electric models in this price range (around $180).

The cutting width is a 32cm and there are five different cutting heights. The rechargeable 12V battery is easily removable and powers the mower for about an hour (provided your grass isn’t too long and wet, of course). The grass collector, which can easily gulp in 20litres of clippings, has an isolator switch for safe removal, and on a single charge, you can get through 20,000 square feet of lawn. It rocks!

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You might have come to think of rotary mowers as the butchers of the lawn world, or at least as barbaric barbers, but if so you haven’t come across the Masport MSV 3-in1 Petrol Rotary Mower. The cutting is much better than you’ll get from a more average rotary machine, largely due to the excellent 4-blade disc design – this mower won’t savage your grass.

And the cutting function can be switched between cutting only, mulching and discharge. The heavy duty chassis is pleasingly robust and there is an ergonomically designed handle which looks distinctly stylish.  You’ll have eleven cutting heights to choose from, ranging between 10mm and 75m, a generous 42 litre grass collector with an indicator to let you know when it’s full and wide-spaced ball bearing wheels for ease of pushing.  The mower has a cutting width of 48 cm (19 inches) sports a gutsy Briggs and Stratton 6VS 60hp engine.  And at around $600, it’s very reasonably priced.

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The Masport Petrol Cylinder Mower 400H does as its title claims, combining the gutsy power of a petrol engine with the classically graceful cut of a cylinder mower. The engine, made by Honda, is a 5hp workhorse and the mower has a reliable self-adjusting chain drive system as well as a soft steel chassis for extra rigidity.

The grass catcher, however, is surprisingly light, despite its generous size – it’s made from tough, durable plastic. Not only this, but you can cut as low as 7mm or as high as 30mm with s simple touch of the single movement cutting height adjuster.

Even though the handles are made of rigid steel, they’re easily adjustable to the height of the operator and they give a strong, crafted appearance to the machine. The price may make your eyes water – at around $1300 a time, these babies aren’t cheap. But you certainly won’t need to buy a replacement for a very, very long time.

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Honda prides itself as the best lawn mower manufacturer in the industry and generously supplies lengthy warranties on its products – up to 7 years for its premium mowers. The Honda HRX 426 QX is to petrol lawn mowers what a luxury limousine is to cars.

Its self-propelled, 4-stroke 160 cc engine is a breeze to start – you won’t have to dislocate your shoulder tugging at the ignition pull-wire with this one. And it has a rear roller to give that elegant striped effect on your lawn. With a 60 litre grass bag, unique Honda Roto-Stop safety breaking, and one-touch folding handle, it’s easy to store and very safe to use.

Not only this, but the ‘Polystrong’ material used for the cutter deck makes it noticeably lighter than many other petrol mowers. It’s not inexpensive at roughly $1200, but it’ll last a lifetime – it may be the last mower you’ll ever need to buy.

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 If you’ve been savaging your lawn with a rotary mower, turn over a new leaf this year and be kind to your grass. No matter how fast and efficient they may be, rotary lowers brutalise lawns; they are to lawn care what army barbers are to hairdressing. A much kinder – and visually much more pleasing – cut will come, every time, with a cylinder mower.

And one cut from the superb Bosch ASM 32 Electric Cylinder mower will have you throwing your rotary barbarian over the nearest cliff. With its tried and tested Qauttro cutting system, you wouldn’t get a better cut if you’d got down on your hands and knees and trimmed the grass with scissors. The cutting height ranges from 12mm to 32mm, it’s light and easy to use, and the ergonomic handle folds neatly down for easy storage. And it has a rear roller for those all-important stripes. For less than $180, it’s simply irresistible.

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