You’ve no doubt already gone out and mowed the lawn at least once this season, if not a few times. After such a long and brutal winter, the temptation to go out there and start sprucing up your lawn is too great to resist, but nor should you. Being outside and tending to your lawn is awesome on so many levels: the fresh air is invigorating, it’s a nice change from channel surfing, and you get to have a hands-on role in boosting your home’s curb appeal. But in your rush to start up the lawn mower, it’s important to remember these safety tips from Mower Source so you don’t end up a statistic.

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1. Keep Your Lawn Mower in Good Shape

when you get in your car, you want to make sure there are no gaping holes in the flooboard, brakes that are as soft as pudding, or a steering wheel that locks. It’s unsafe, and can cause catastrophic damage. But because your lawn mower is much smaller, it tends to get ignored for basic maintenance.

This is especially true for riding lawn mowers, because the last thing you want to deal with is a machine with hot oil and many moving parts going rogue on you. You don’t have to necessarily perform a full mechanical inspection every time you use it, but make it a point to eyeball the mower for physical damage and really listen to it when it’s turned on.

2. Clear the Lawn Before You Begin

One of the main characters in the movie Crazy in Alabama, Peejoe, gets hit in the eye with a golf ball that the lawn mower spit up (it’s the sixth paragraph in this link). Unfortunately, this type of thing isn’t an isolated incident and people get hit with spit-up objects from their lawn mowers all the time.

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While a lawn mower’s sharp blades can cut through things, they can also act as a surface upon which objects can bounce off. And if one of those objects is a stone or something else that’s not easily cut, that can shoot right back at you and put you in the hospital. Are potentially thousands of dollars of medical bills worth saving a few minutes to not check the lawn?

3. Watch the Kids

While you be on top of lawn mower safety, your kids still have to experience the learning curve for themselves, which doesn’t have to be dangerous. Take time to talk to them about the potential dangers of a lawn mower, how they can treat it with respect, and to what degree they can be involved in mowing.

Kids are curious creatures and learn about their world by touch, so encourage that in a safe way. Let them be around the lawn mower when you are and don’t turn it on unless they’re a safe distance away. The great thing about children is they’re like little sponges: they’ll soak up everything you tell them, so make sure it’s good and safe information.

4. Don’t Drink and Mow

You may be thinking what a couple of cold ones has to do with mowing the lawn, but it’s just a better idea to avoid it. Your reflexes slow down, you’re more liable to take chances you wouldn’t when sober, and alcohol has a tendency to make its imbibers feel invincible.

Just about 99.9% of people reading this will never think anything can happen to them, that they’ve lawn mowed enough times to be able to do it in their sleep. But it’s precisely that complacency that can cause injuries, as accidents rarely just “happen”. Accidents — true accidents — are things that happen completely out of control, like a boulder dropping on your windshield when you’re on the freeway. What others think of accidents are lapses in focus, concentration and judgement, and drinking before mowing is one of the quickest routes there.

And besides, doesn’t an ice-cold beer taste much better after the physical part of mowing is over?

Whether you pull or push (safer) your lawn mower, have one that goes in both directions, or switched to electric to be eco-friendly, there are four basic safety tips you should always be practicing. Just because a lawn mower is small doesn’t mean it can do big-time damage, and it’s so easy to prevent it, too. Keep Mower Source’s handy guide close to you if you ever need a quick refresher, and our website even closer. We’ve got an amazing line of lawn mowers for every type of yard, and there’s free shipping to the lower 48 states on all of them.

Ideally, your Mower Source lawn mower will run fine every time because you’ve been taking great care in properly maintaining it. But lawn mowers are mechanical objects with moving parts, and they’re not immune from running into the occasional problems. Because you’re both a dedicated reader and fan of Mower Source‘s high standard of quality, this post on how to troubleshoot basic problems is just for you.

Lawn Mower Won’t Start

There are several reasons for this problem, each listed below:

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Lawn Mower Mows Unevenly

This is almost always one of two problems:

Lawn Mower Guzzles Gas

Lawn mowers that use gas aren’t supposed to go through fuel like a thirsty V12 Hummer, so the culprit is usually a clogged air filter. Clean it thoroughly, or replace it if it’s more than a year old.

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Lawn Mower Suddenly Dies

Uh-oh! You’re halfway through the lawn and it just quits on you. Here’s what to do:

Lawn Mower is Smoking

It’s easy to freak out when you see smoke coming out of your lawn mower, but this isn’t usually a complicated problem. Just make sure to turn the switch off before troubleshooting.

Lawn Mower Starter Rope Requires the Strength of Hercules

You pull and pull on that thing, and you may as well be solving geometric proofs for all the good it’s doing. Never fear, it’s usually one of these things:

Congratulations, you’re now a mini-pro at keeping your Mower Source mower going all the time! And if you don’t have a Mower Source lawn mower, then check out our selection right now. Any lawn mower you have your heart set on, it’ll come right to your doorstep with free shipping. And if you place an order between Monday to Friday before 1pm CST, we’ll ship it that very day!

Lawns are essentially plants, which means they need regular maintenance to look their best. An ignored lawn may be okay, but it’s highly unlikely. Instead, focusing on it — and focusing on it the right way — means you’re lawn can be happy, healthy and pretty. In this article, Mower Source takes a look at different ways of mowing your lawn to achieve a variety of looks.

The Wrigley Field Cut

What lawn is nicer to look at than a baseball field, and especially the one at Wrigley Field? While the overall ballpark has a lot of positive aesthetics going for it, its lawn is one of the biggest components. It’s comprised of mainly alternating stripes, but there’s also a faint cross hatch pattern on it, too.

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How to get the look: Straight lines are a must (alternate the direction on each stripe), but to get the striped look, you have to bend the grass blades in different directions. To do that, leave your grass on the long-ish side and weigh your lawn mower down with duct-taped barbells (to adequately bend the grass). The only tricky bit is maximizing on how much sun can reflect off the grass blades: the direction that gets the most sun on your lawn should be parallel to the sun. For example, if your lawn gets the west sun, mow stripes in east and west lines.

Spiral

Want to make your lawn look like a small crop circle? It’s a lot easier than you think. You do have to make a concerted effort to focus on straight lines (making them curved is a lot harder), but using landmarks in your yard helps a great deal. Tip: use a weed whacker on the outer edges before you begin, so that way you can get cleaner lines.

How to get the look: Start in the middle of your lawn and move in outward concentric lines. Or, in less fancier terms, mow up one lawn mower width, turn, and repeat until you’ve done the whole lawn. Only turn in one direction.

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Quadruple Spiral

If you’re looking for a big challenge but something that’ll make your lawn look really cool, give four spirals a go. It can get a bit tricky keeping track of all the turns (62) and straight lines, but outlining it faintly in chalk first can cut out a lot of that.

How to get the look: Start on one edge and go from the middle spot. From there, you’ll be cutting into the first center of one spiral, mowing your way out of it and into the center of another spiral, and so on until you’ve done all four.

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Zig Zag Spiral

This is an identical pattern to the Spiral, except there are zig zags mown into every line. The result — if done correctly — is a lawn that looks like a completed jigsaw puzzle, with each puzzle piece the same shape and size.

How to get this look: Start in a corner (as opposed to the exact center as with the normal spiral), and turn your lawn mower 90 degrees every lawn mower width. Go from corner to corner in reverse concentric lines until you’ve reached the center.

Labyrinth

This looks like a tricky pattern to achieve, but that’s more illusion than actuality. If you don’t have a good eye for going at it with your lawn mower, outline the pattern first with chalk and then follow the lines.

How to get the look: You’ll want to start in one corner, mow down the edge, stop halfway and then begin the labyrinth. It can be a little dizzying to complete, but the finished look is so worth it.

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You’re set with a number of different patterns you can mow your lawn with, so the only thing left is making sure you’ve got the right lawn mower. Check out Mower Source’s selection of lawn mowers to settle on the one that’s right for you, and enjoy free shipping to the lower 48 states.

Mowing your lawn is simple, right? Not so much. Grass is a living, breathing organism, and has very specific requirements. For instance, cutting your grass too short can make your lawn look bald or patchy, while letting it go makes your property look like a scrapyard. The key is to find that happy medium where your grass looks healthy but isn’t overgrown, and Mower Source has all the answers.

Mowing Height

Different climates have different grasses, and each one demands a different height for optimal growth. At the most basic, grass and the height it should be cut can be divided into cool season height and warm season height (when it grows the most).

One tip to use if you have no idea what kind of grass you have and still want to get the height right is to cut no more than one-third of the leaf. The reasoning for this is so grass can grow at its optimal rate during its peak growing season. Cut more than that, and you’ll stunt the grass’s growth. Grass is a plant like any other, and cutting it the right amount will promote full, lush growth, while it can thin out and look patchy if you go too short.

It’s not absolutely crucial to know what kind of grass you have, as you can tell by how fast or slow it’s growing, as well as the climate you live in. But one good thing about knowing exactly what kind of grass you have is you can Google its tallest recommended height. By staying within those parameters, you’ll ensure deep, healthy roots, which means the grass can hold onto water more easily and space out so weeds can’t grow as readily.

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Sharpen Those Blades

It’s no good knowing the theory behind proper grass height if the goods don’t match that. The duller the blades, the more of a tendency they’ll have to just bend the grass blades instead of actually cutting them. Plus, dull blades making you feel like you’re working 10 times harder with a fraction of the result.

Other tips to remember include:

Mowing the lawn doesn’t have to be a magic formula known to few, although there is a bit of an exact science to it. Now that you’re armed with everything you need to know about grass height and other tips, let Mower Source take care of the hardware. Our line of lawn mowers and accessories have something for everyone, and shipping is free to the lower 48 states.

Most homeowners take pride in the look of their lawns. When the weekend hits and you step outside all you here is the buzzing sound of a lawn mower. Regular lawn mowing contributes to a beautiful, healthy lawn. It is the best way to prevent weeds from growing and to keep parasites away.

Lawn height varies by grass type but generally you want to keep your lawn at 2 inches during the fall and spring and 2-3 inches during the summer. The reason that you want the grass at a higher height in the summer is so the grass can shade underlying growth. Taller grass can also retain moister better which reduces the need to water the grass.

The rule of 1/3 states that you should not cut more then 1/3 of your grass off at a time. If you haven’t cut your grass in a while try mowing a couple of times to get it down to the ideal height. Based on the rule of 1/3 it is best to mow more in the spring and fall when the grass is being fertilized and growing at a more rapid rate during the summer.

The best time of the day to mow is during the late afternoon or the evening. Since mowing the lawn damages the plant it is good to give it time to recover. Mowing in the evening will give it at least 12 hours of rest from the sun.