Dear Mother: April/May 2007

(Page 5 of 9)

April/May 2007, Issue 221
Letters from our readers 
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IRENA SWANSON
Portland, Oregon

RELATED CONTENT

Yes, “American” style scythes, common in the past, were not suited to cutting grass. Harvey’s scythe isn’t homemade; he has bought scythes from both Lehman’s and Smith & Hawken.  Two more good sources for scythes and related items—including high-quality blades imported from Europe—arewww.scythesupply.com andwww.scytheconnection.com. —Mother

Wants a Weedless Patio

While reading your article about making paths and patios from paving bricks, I cringed at the claim that they “require almost no maintenance” (“Picture-perfect Paths and Patios,” December/January 2007). We used to have just such a patio, professionally installed exactly as described in the article. What the article neglects to mention is that the tiny cracks between pavers are weed gardens requiring constant attention, from spring through fall, if you don’t want your patio to look like a patch of weeds with bricks in it. That means constantly weeding all those cracks by hand or using a propane weed burner as soon as weeds emerge. (That’s assuming Mother readers are not inclined to spray the whole patio with weed killer.) If we ever put in another patio, it’s going to be a nice solid concrete slab, stamped and dyed to look like paving bricks or stone.

ALEX STANLEY
Fairfield, Iowa

Mower Mixup

Thanks for the great article on walk-behind tractors (“Miracle Multitaskers,” December/January 2007). As the owner of Earth Tools, the BCS dealer mentioned in the article, I must point out a mixup between the features of two attachments we offer, the brush mower and the flail mower. The BCS brush mower is actually designed much like the DR brush mower, with a vertical-axis rotating blade. The big difference between them is that the BCS has “swing blades” (just like a full-sized tractor bush-hog). These fold back upon impact with rocks, stumps, etc., to protect the drivetrain.

However, the description of the BCS brush mower in the article — “many individual blades spinning vertically from a horizontal axis” — actually applies to our flail mower. This type of mower is incredibly durable, and it’s coveted by gardeners who want to grind up a cover crop for quick incorporation into the soil. Like a chipper/shredder on wheels, it can reduce a cover crop up to 6 feet tall to 2- to 3-inch pieces in a single pass. It leaves the cut material evenly distributed across its width, not windrowed to one side as a typical brush mower would. The flail mowers also accept four different blades designed for lawns, weeds/brush, wood and light scarification (for overseeding).

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