Robot lawnmower .......

I’ve seen them used at several NT properties, there are several types of guidance systems which have to be installed. The one I’ve seen is Husqvarna and costs £1300 and up, I’m sure there are cheaper ones.

My lawn is a complicated shape so OH has do mow it normally.

Saw one in a hotel in Crete. It was fascinating to watch and seemed to do the job.
Sorry I do not know anyone who has one.

There's a garden near here with one, and the grass is certainly well cut and neat. Not a big garden. I don't know what kind it is, but it is red, if that's any help!

I know someone who has one and loves it.
It is not so great on inclines, but theirs is largely a flat lawn.
It probably does not do the greatest job, but saves the young couple doing it themselves.
I dont think it is the cheapest gadget to own.

My son uses a robot mower on the back and front garden which are large and it does an amazing job.
When it finishes it goes back to it's recharging station.
They bought one some years ago but they are very expensive over £1000.

The only thing I worry about with robot mowerr is would it encourage someone to come into the garden to steal it?

Sorry if thats too negative a reply.

I'd love one (or a few) but it could well be stolen. I'll stick with my dream of a ride on mower, some day soon.

Luckygirl3, - a few suggestions:

When I mow the small lawn outside, I also cut the next-door-but-one patch as well. I could see her struggling, so offered as it's just a five minute job.

She knows I won't take payment so often hands me a few cakes or a jar of home-made jam. That suits us both. She had the back garden gravelled over, so has no lawn there.

My son has had a robot mower and loves it.
It's quite safe to use regarding theft as he's in the countryside and up a lane.
The provider sets it up with a fine wire boundary. The mower stays within the boundary. It doesn't do lines.
He can check on his phone which shows tracks of where it has mowed.
A large garden and it was very expensive.

* had a mower for several years and loves it.

We use one. I think it would be good if you have a nice lawn with good grass. It doesn't work well on the dandelion tufts and tough meadow grass.

We have one (she’s called Matilda!) We use it in an area of the garden which has about 15 small, growing trees which it is difficult to drive round with the walk behind mower and as for the sit on mower - no chance. We set up the wire ourselves and are very pleased with her. We have a security camera covering that area and we have built Matilda a ‘house’ where she returns to recharge. Matilda also has a 4 figure security number if she needs restarting manually and as a theft deterrent. We can control her schedule using a phone or iPad. Ours was less than £500. She sometimes gets stuck due to very wet conditions or she can’t quite manoeuvre around a big clump of weed.

I’ve had one for about 8 years now. Absolutely no trouble. I bought mine from a family firm and they came and laid the boundary wire around the lawn perimeter. The mower will stop and turn at the boundary wire so there is still a bit of stimming to do. When its charge is low it stops and finds the central wire and is guided back to the charging station where it stays all the time only being put away for the winter.

Mine had a pin number that you had to put in to start it, so stealing it would not have been easy. It could be programmed to run at a set time for as long as you wanted (but it needed to have rests built in for recharging - as we all do!) You could set it to go daily, or on certain days of the week, or weekly. I was very pleased with it in general. The grass looked good and I never had to cut it.

It didn't mow in parallel lines, but bounced off the boundary at an angle, so it traced a rather random path around the lawn. It did a good job, best if it ran a couple of times a week, as the clippings were left behind as mulch, and if the grass was longish they built up. They recommended that the first cut of the year was done with a conventional mower in case the grass was long and rough, but if it had been cut late in the autumn the previous season, I don't think it would have struggled with it.

The minus side is that it had to have a wire embedded into a slot round the lawn a couple of inches in from the edge, to let it know wirelessly that it was about to head into the flowerbed and that it had better turn. There was also a "lead-in" wire going from the mower's contact and recharge point to somewhere on the peripheral wire. That was the most difficult part of the installation, not helped by animals (I think foxes) digging up some of the wire in the first few days and chewing through it. Apparently they liked the taste of the plastic covering on it. A bit of wire had to be added in to join the ends together, using two sets of connectors and then burying that bit of wire again.

Then there was a problem when something (I think the moss scarifying done by Green Thumb) must have cut the wire at some invisible point. There is a procedure to find exactly where the break is, but it was complicated and time consuming, and I decided it was simpler to just lay down another wire, an extra inch or two in from the edge. I think I must have had the two wires touching somewhere, or maybe just near enough to each other to communicate, because the scheduling never worked properly after that, and it insisted on stopping dead at certain places and refusing to start up again.

I ended up giving it away to somebody who knew someone who they thought could mend it, while I bought a conventional rechargeable electric mower. If I were buying one again (and they are very useful things) I would get the work of installing it done by a professional, and if there were a problem I would get them back to fix it, I wouldn't do it myself. I would avoid Green Thumb, too, or anyone else who used machines on the grass.

Can I ask, is the boundary wire above the lawn and by how much? We have raised beds around most of our lawn, but I am a bit worried about tripping over a wire. We also have a tortoise and I'm sure she would get caught if there was a wire running above the suface in the few bits where the lawn is flush with paving, gravel etc.

No, it is buried a few inches beneath the surface. The slot is made by pushing a spade into the lawn, tilting it forward to open up a narrow trench, and laying plastic-covered wire into the slot. Different brands may do it differently - mine was an orange Black and Decker one.

Sorry - it was a Flymo!

The wire can go under paving slabs if they are flush with the grass. The mower just runs over the slab.

The newer versions seem simpler to use than mine, but with more functions. I suppose they evolve and improve, like many things. www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/970490401/flymo-970490401-easilife-go-250-lawn-mower

We have had one for 6 or 7 years

We have a large plot of 5000 square metres so it saves lots of time

DH loves it - the lawnmower sends him text messages and dh is much more eager to answer the lawnmower's messages than mine!

The only issue we had had this year is our area has had extreme rain and flooding - we have had to keep an eye because if the lawn develops lumps and holes he can get stuck

I don't have personal knowledge of this but have seen them at work in hotel gardens in Italy where the grass was coarse but level and here in the UK on a substantial slope. I think some have no problems with slopes.

I am going to the "slope" Hotel this week so if I spot one will try to get a photo.

Anyone who has visited Edinburgh and stood in Princes Street looking up the Mound has seen the green expanse of sloping lawn in front of New College divinity college. That must be a devil to mow! (sorry, that was irresistable) A few years ago I was walking up the Mound past a small crowd that was mesmerised by the sight of a robot mower competently trundling around on that. It seemed to cope OK. There was a notice stating that it was a trial run.