Here in Florida, the streets are empty, the restaurants have reservations available, and I can count on one hand the number of out-of-state plates I see when I drive around town. It’s that magical time of year when the snowbirds leave and head back North. That can only mean one thing, the rest of the country has joined us in celebrating the end of winter (except maybe Colorado).
While Florida doesn’t really experience “seasons” as the rest of the country knows them, there is a period of the year where I don’t have to mow (or feel guilty about not mowing) my lawn every three days.
Those days are over.
With temps over 90 and afternoon showers developing daily, my yard is growing in patchy fits. On the sides of the house, where the grass from the neighbors’ well-maintained lawns creeps over, it looks great. But in front of my house, where the responsibility is all mine, that’s another story.
I’ve never been great at maintaining anything garden-wise. Even after reading papers and articles and setting schedules, I’ve mostly avoided going outside for the summer months, preferring instead to pay my teenager to mow the lawn so that I could avoid thinking about it.
But this year I’m determined to not repeat the mistakes of the past. For that to happen, I’m going to need to turn to technology.
Scott’s My Lawn App
Despite living in a state where winter is more of a suggestion than a inevitability, the Platonic “Florida lawn” of verdant green grass has always eluded me.
Some of that is by choice. To keep a lawn that looks like it belongs on a golf course, you have to constantly spray it down with chemicals and water it heavily. This introduces chemicals into the storm water system, which trickles down to the Bay, which results in things like the year-long red tide bloom we had last year.
That’s also a convenient soapbox for me since the other truth is that I have no idea what I’m doing. Maintaining an actual “Florida lawn,” which is just a collection of weeds and grasses that happen to get green in the summer, is the maximum of my abilities.
The Scott’s My Lawn app was made for people like me. Not only does it provide education on how to take care of your lawn, it provides personalized product recommendations based on your lawn, and creates an application schedule for you.
With my recommended bag of fertilizer and Elite Spreader loaded, I put my phone in the handle (Does it need a phone holder? Nope. Am I going to use it anyway? You bet.) and set out covering the lawn with Turf Builder.
Why? Because that’s what the app told me to do.
Taking care to use the edge guard so that I wasn’t fertilizing the driveway or street, I finished up in no time, folded up the spreader, and tucked it away to wait for the app to tell me it’s OK to fertilize again (Florida doesn’t allow fertilizing during summer months).
Obviously, it’ll take time to see if it all works as advertised, but I feel better having done something about my browning lawn. And for things like this, where I’m deeply clueless about how to do things properly, it really does feel like I have a landscaping mentor on my phone, giving me advice on how to help make things better.
Does it favor a single brand? Well, yeah. It’s not the “Generic Lawncare App.” But I feel like there’s enough non-Scott’s advice that even if you don’t buy their products, you can find utility in the app. Let’s face it, though, when you go to the big box hardware store, you’re buying what they’ve got on the shelf, and Scott’s dominates. Might as well steer into the turn.
You can download the app here.
Rachio Smart WiFi Sprinkler
Even if it’s well fed, my baked-in-100-degree-heat lawn needs some water to get it through the day. That’s why I’m still loving the Rachio smart sprinkler system that I wrote about last year.
More than just a “set and forget” automatic controller, when you set up your Rachio for the first time, you do a deep dive into each zone of your sprinkler system, telling it what’s being watered. Rachio then decides how often that zone needs to be watered, based on plant type, soil drainage, and actual weather.
That’s my favorite feature. As my wife can attest, sprinkler systems working in the middle of a rainstorm is one of my pet peeves. Rachio keeps an eye on real-time weather and makes adjustments to its schedule accordingly. If there was a downpour yesterday, it’ll skip today. If that rain never showed up, it’ll make adjustments and water a little more.
And if I need to add an additional bit of watering, say if I just sprinkled fertilizer on the lawn and it needs water to activate, it’s a simple thing to pop open the app and do a one-off session (that the Rachio will take into account and use to adjust its future schedule). You can even use the old Gen 1 Echo you’ve banished to the garage (because your house is full of Dots) to activate the system if your hands are full.
Rachio is one of the few pieces of tech that I’ve reviewed over the past year that continues to work exactly as advertised well after I’ve written about it (I should really do a “when the honeymoon’s over” series). The app is consistent. The hardware is reliable (and attractive, every lawn guy I’ve had at the new place has asked about it). And it does exactly what it says it will do. Well worth the investment.
Check out the Rachio site for more information.
EGO Power+ Battery-Powered Lawn Equipment
So, yay me, I’m on my way to a lush, green lawn. But now I’ve got to mow it. And there’s nothing I hate more than being stuck behind a belching 4-stroke motor, sucking down gas fumes.
Or even better, fighting with spark plugs and conducting emergency engine repair when the heat index is over 100.
That’s why I went battery-powered years back and it’s why I continue to snatch up the latest battery-powered models as they come out. The EGO Power+ 21″ Self-Propelled Cordless Lawn Mower is proof that you don’t need gas to keep your lawn trimmed.
Powered by two 7.5 Amp lithium batteries, this mower will rip right out of your hands if you’re not prepared (luckily it has an automatic shut off if it does). Slot the batteries in the top of the mower, depress the lever, and you’ve got over an hour of runtime with torque that equals a gas-powered 4-Cycle engine.
I was a little worried that my calf-high grass would limit my first mow with EGO. But not only was I surprised at how it took care of the overgrown grass without choking, I still had more than enough battery life when I was done to go back around the house (with the self-propeller on and the blade off, like a giant RC car), engaging the blade here and there to catch swaths of grass I missed.
Then I popped those same batteries out and loaded one into the Power+ String Trimmer and another into the Power+ 580 CFM Blower (you can buy both without batteries to save some cash) and took care of my edging and clean up.
An hour after I started, I popped the batteries onto the rapid charger. A little less than 45 minutes later, both were topped back off and ready to go for the next session. No oil to mess with, no gas to keep track of, no fuss at all.
The EGO mower even folds back up on itself and can be stored vertically against the wall to save space (since there are no fluids to run out or gum up the engine).
I tried hard to find something I didn’t like about any of products in the EGO line, but if there’s a downside to ending a mow session faster, without choking on gas fumes, I’m not seeing it.
The mower even has a headlight! That may seem silly, but since it’s so quiet, I could easily wait until the sun goes down and the heat index drops to 80-something and mow at night without disturbing anyone.
My only wish is that it was app-enabled so that I could keep track of battery health, runtime, and other assorted metrics. But then, I’m a tech guy, not a lawn guy, I prefer to get all of my data via app rather than real world observation.
If you’re dreading busting out the old lawn mower and looking for an upgrade that isn’t based on 1950s tech, I recommend adding the EGO line of tools to your short list. Find out more at the EGO website.
While taking care of your lawn is probably the least technical thing you can do, with some smartphone help and a proper upgrade to 21st century equipment, you can knock out your lawn care more quickly and more informed than ever before. You may still have to earn that day off, but you don’t have to beat yourself up to do so.
Thanks to Scott’s, Rachio, and EGO for providing materials for this article. Opinions are my own
