Cutting grass on 45 degree bankings, options?

[drinksloe]

I'll try and mind to take a photo the morn.

But basically its the steepness of the steepest motorway bankings ur allowed

 

But my back door opens right on to it and its right round the house so u will see the bit 'going mental' i might be as well to let the whole lot go mental.

 

When i got it sown i did want a wild flower or bumble bee/nectare mix but the lad advised against it

1 he wanted to sow a lot of deep rooted grass spc just to hold it together, which makes sense

2 he says they just look sh#t for most of the year apart from when actually flowering.

I have planted some wild flower mixes lsewhere and results tend to vary, having a very poor year this year but that could be 4 years since sown, just looks like a big ple of weeds plus hard to spray any actual weedss without killing the wild flowers

[Stere]

 

 

If its  its a  loads of  docks and nettles it etc means nitrogen is  high and is often down to human input somehow even so though they are still a good habit for the insects nature etc.

 

Wild flower meadows need cutting once a yr and  the hay removed to  reduce soil fertility which  helps favour the flowers over grass    to maintain them in some kind of statsis, . Uncut will gradually turn into  coarse tussocky grass then bramble/ scrub thicket  etc .

 

Having yellow rattle also helps as is parasites the grass.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by Stere

[porky]

Just plant some shrubs to cover it...

[openspaceman]

8 hours ago, Stere said:

Wild flower meadows need cutting once a yr and  the hay removed to  reduce soil fertility

I wonder if  the reason many of these grassland fires have taken off down here is that the savings on mowing have dictated not cutting and as the grass goes over the top and the leaves and stems are left dead standing.

 

Anyway I have pulled the one I have here out of  the shed, put fuel in and it fired after 3 pulls  but then took a while to settle down without any choke, I'll upload a video.

 

This is the younger but more used one and last used about 5 years ago just to try it. It will soon need a new blade.

 

 

 

Transport may be an issue for a while as it's not worth the cost of any of the pallet couriers but in the absence of any other suggestions I may have a plan...

 

 

[openspaceman]

18 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

Seems to me one problem with the mover is steering it, another is holding the weight back. I haven't tried this but I was thinking maybe get a scaffold pole along the top of the slope, then have one rope with a prussic to take the weight. Stand a little bit to the side with a second rope to the mower and you can pull it in an arc, then lower prussic 2 foot, cut another arc etc. You could cut a swathe on the way down, then pull it back up and slide along the scaffold pole to next swathe.

 

Maybe a hassle but you wouldn't be holding the weight of the mower all the time, and you can't drop the running mower down the slope which would seem to be a safety improvement.

I never got beyond a short bit of string but my banks were very short.

 

In principle you could use two ropes, one round a fixed peg , as a pivot, and then the mower. The other one side on to pull it in an arc.Gradually increasing the length of the first rope to eventually cover a quadrant, then move on.

[Dan Maynard]

1 minute ago, openspaceman said:

I never got beyond a short bit of string but my banks were very short.

 

In principle you could use two ropes, one round a fixed peg , as a pivot, and then the mower. The other one side on to pull it in an arc.Gradually increasing the length of the first rope to eventually cover a quadrant, then move on.

That's it, I was just thinking rather than a row of pegs along the top put a rail so you slide the anchor along.

 

There's got to be a better way though.

[openspaceman]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LJyVl-7hpNawCuRHVu5myWVn1ZnqF0lj/view?usp=sharing

DRIVE.GOOGLE.COM

I'll leave this up for a little while @drinksloe

[Stere]

Dawgs attacking it    😄

 

Like this one 😏

 

 

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

Dawgs attacking it    😄

 

Like this one 😏

 

 

 

Actually the flymo is much easier to pull than this if the ground is reasonably flat on account of the air cushion. You may see that the frenchie easily pulls it sideways.

 

I really do see no reason to use a strimmer string on this sort of job but it does cover a wider swath.

[drinksloe]

On 21/07/2022 at 17:07, Dan Maynard said:

That's it, I was just thinking rather than a row of pegs along the top put a rail so you slide the anchor along.

 

There's got to be a better way though.

 

Aye u'd think there would be an easier way, think it will be a suck it and see job.

 

Can just imganie the nightmare of going slightly over the edge, just an extra foot , slipping and knowing ur sliding towards a potentially still spinning lawnmower.

There is a wee dwarf wall at bottom so wouldn't fall anywhere just the change of getting something caught up in the flymo has me winching.

 

By rights u should be rigging some sort of dead man cord like on jetskis so if u come off it stops, which would work if u lost the rope, not so much if u slipped towards the lawnmower.

 

Mibbe the post/anchor thing is a god safety feature if u slipped it would/should swing to the side and u should slide straight down.

 

Chers open 👍 Amazing how well made some of those old engines are