Bags are better if ...
• There is too much grass for the mower, it clumps up, overworks the engine and makes a mess. That’s when a bag or side discharge would be better to use.
Horsepower not important
One of the first things riding-mower customers do at Fairfield Power Equipment is “pop the hood and see how much many horsepower it has,” said salesman Greg Allen.
But store owner Jim Stevenson says horsepower is the last thing people should ask about when shopping for a mower, because all the mowers have more than enough horsepower.
Riding mowers worked fine with 8 horsepower engines 40 years ago, and walk mowers were sold at 3 horsepower not too long ago.
Mulching does require a little more horsepower, but manufacturers mostly increased the horsepower to 6 or more for walk mowers and 18 or more for riding mowers to satisfy customers’ false perception that more horsepower was better.
However, class-action lawsuits were filed in recent years when customers claimed the mowers weren’t delivering all the horsepower that was advertised, and many manufacturers are working on settlements.
In the Tri-state area, only four of the 65 municipalities with Rumpke contracts offer to collect grass clippings from residents.
Those clippings are taken to the company’s NPK Compost Farm in Colerain Twp. and developed into landscaping mulch. In Butler and Warren counties, Rumpke only has a contract to collect grass clippings with the city of Oxford.
Residents in other cities can put bagged grass clippings out on the curb, but the grass will be taken to the landfill and won’t be separated from regular trash.
“About 5 to 10 years ago, many more contracts included some type of yard-waste program,” said Amanda Pratt, director of communications at Rumpke. “These programs have ended mainly because of poor participation, additional hauling costs and the integration of municipal-operated brush collection programs. Mulching mowers have also cut down on the amount of grass clippings placed at the curb.”
A survey of local mower retailers says sales of bag for mowers has been on the decline in recent years as more people realize the value of mulching.
People don’t like putting grass out with the regular trash, lawn-care specialists say, but hardly any communities offer a separate collection to a compost farm.
“Probably 90 percent of our sales are a mulch-type mower,” said Greg Allen, a salesman at Fairfield Power Equipment for eight years. “Very few people bag anymore. We sell them occasionally, but not very often. The trend has been for the last three or four years that mulching far outnumbers the people that bag.”
One of the main reasons people still request bagging, most surveyed said, was if there was a pool near the grass.
“They don’t want to track grass into the pool,” West Chester Lawn and Garden sales manager David Goodwin said.
He also said people want bagging if they have pets that go out into the yard early in the morning when there is dew on the grass or if they have a lot of large leaves in the yard.
All the walk mowers at West Chester Lawn and Garden come with bags because it’s standard equipment with Toro and a lot of Snapper models.
“Most people take that bag off, put it in their garage and never use it at all,” said Goodwin, who has worked at the Liberty Twp. store for 11 years.
The bags aren’t standard equipment for the riding mowers he sells, and Goodwin says less than 5 percent of the customers buy the bag. More than half buy mulching kits. The rest use the standard side-discharge system.
It’s the same story at Buchanan’s Power Equipment Center in Lebanon. Vice President and General Manager Gary Campbell says years ago half the mowers were sold with bags. Now, it’s less than 10 percent. But mulching kits, he says, are sold on about 25 percent of his mowers.
“The problem is they can’t get rid of the grass clippings. A lot of places won’t take grass clippings anymore,” said Campbell, who has been in the business 30 years. “They may not have places to get rid of it like the old bagger system. People used to put them on their gardens and things like that, and not a lot of people are gardening anymore. So what they’re doing, they’re mulching, and the mulch is good for the lawn.”
Tru-Scape Turf Management mows 110 to 120 lawns a week mostly in Butler and Warren counties, and owner Jeremy Loukinas says it only has one or two customers ask for the clippings to be bagged. His company tries to encourage customers to mulch, especially since mulching grinds the grass up enough that it’s hardly noticeable.
“It almost looks like oregano compared to a full blade of grass,” he said.
Campbell does warn that if leaves are really thick, bagging might be best. He sometimes uses the bag in his yard around the maple trees.
“If you get too much mulch, it will kill the grass out,” he said.
Fairfield Power Equipment owner Jim Stevenson said this past spring wasn’t a good time to mulch since it was so wet.
“There is a time and place for everything,” he said. “I tell (customers) there’s no magic that happens underneath that deck. A mulching blade is cutting that same blade of grass over and over.”
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