Rotary vs Reel: forced to do the unthinkable on week two!

Join us in Week 2 of our Reel vs Rotary Mower series as we tackle summer heat challenges on a Bermuda grass lawn! Watch as we raise the height of cut on the reel mower in the front yard to combat browning and promote greener growth, while the rotary mower keeps the back yard thriving at a slightly higher cut. Discover practical tips on watering, avoiding scalping, and maintaining a lush lawn through hot weather. Expect real-time updates, before-and-after visuals, and insights on transitioning mowers for fall. Perfect for lawn care enthusiasts seeking low-cut Bermuda strategies!

Link to week 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFdgwv1ZkKA&list=PLNRIhgEakXM3x5RY1mcrvk4eImMPf9QB_&index=3

#ReelVsRotary #lawncaretips #SummerLawnMaintenance

[Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. So, here we are. Week two reel versus rotary series. Back is starting to green up a little bit more than the front because I’m letting it grow. And it has inspired me, although this might end up being the bane of my existence to run the hide a cut up here on the John Deere just a little bit. We’re going to do here. Thankfully, it’s not that hard to do with this mower. There’s this bar here that you pop off. Pop it on here. I should probably know what my height of cut is at right now. Um, if someone asked me what it was at, I’d tell them it’s at the right height. There’s not going to be any science to this. I’m just going to be honest with you. We’re just going to run it up some. We’ll see if that’s does the trick. Let’s see down here. One thing that’s nice about having set up on this John Deere with this bar is that I don’t have to do each side independently. Lets me be a lot less precise. And we’re all set. [Music] All right, it’s game time. See if this gets us enough off the top. Yeah, we’re still cutting. We’re good. Pra so you guys can see. We’re still taking some off here in the front, just not a whole lot, which is fine. We want to come up with it just a little bit. And this will hopefully help the front compete with the back a little bit and staying green. Still midcut out here, but I want to stop for a second and show you guys what we’re working with. [Music] It’s looking pretty good. Too bright. Need sunglasses. Man, it is is cooking out here. It’s only about 10 o’clock in the morning and we’re already burning up, but it doesn’t look quite as good over here. And I’m fairly sure I know why. I don’t think I’ve been watering enough on this side. This is the south facing side of the house. And so this gets blasted with sun all day long. over here. It does look like not burnout, but you could you can see where it just doesn’t quite look as fresh as up front. And as expected, the back is greened up substantially. Now, this is higher than the front. So, it’s got a little bit of an unfair advantage. We’re at about an inch and a quarter back here with the rotary. Most of the scalping’s gone. There’s still a couple places where we’ve got circling just because of how the yard’s configured here. Lots of undilations. I don’t know if you can see that on video, but there’s a big dip there. Go over a little hump there. Now, some of this is because when we bought this house, this back portion here was actually still woods. So, we had somebody come out and clear it to extend the yard back to the property line. And that created what is somewhat of a like a divot is night and day difference back here. And just giving it a little bit of time to grow. Cut this yesterday. Now the trick back here is going to be staying on top of the mowing and mowing this is as frequently as we mow with the reel in the front. That way we don’t get any uh scalping and we can hopefully maintain this dark green look for the rest of the year. here. I won’t have to water back here as much because it’s a little bit longer. So, yeah. I mean, there definitely benefits definitely benefits to to using a rotary mower. This gives you guys a sense of what you can do with with just a rotary if you run it down, cut it low, let it grow, and cut it one notch higher. Now, you’ll see down at the base of the grass blades there, it’s brown. So, if I were to come back here in the back and do anything other than the current setting, if I were to try to come low with it, it would look like a hot mess. the front you because we’re keeping it shorter. It doesn’t have as much stalk brown stock beneath it, but just a different feel, different feel on your feet. Different look all around. Not finished out here, but it’s going fresh mo is going to look like out front. Yeah, I think I like this kind of reel in the front, rotor in the back. Like I said, still mowing. Not done. Still a mess out here. And clean this all up. But just want to give you guys a quick look, quick update so you can see how our reel versus rotary series is progressing. Now, I know we said that we’re going to stick with just the rotary in the back and the reel up front, and I’m going to do that for the rest of the summer. I will say though is as we hit fall, I might still go ahead and transition this over to rotary in the front just for the last three, four weeks of the season. And that’s just because the yard gets so tired by that point that it just gets really hard to make it look good uh with the reel. The other problem you get into at that point is that you can no longer put down well you could but you shouldn’t put down any slowrelease fertilizer. So I’m really going to be limited to putting down something like a 10 10 come let’s say September. So, what I’ll probably do up here once we hit that point is transition to the rotary and just let this start to slowly creep up. And as it cools down, I’d probably just need to come out here about once a week. So, yeah, when we get there, we’re not there yet, obviously, but when we get there, we’ll probably let the rotary take over in the front and just let this creep up, creep up, creep up. And if we do it right, we can actually keep this yard looking nice and green probably all the way, don’t hold me to this, but all the way through December. We’ll see. [Music] Heat up [Music] [Music] here. [Music]