Are You Mowing The Life Out Of Your Garden?
I have a friend who is very much into his wildlife and nature conservation and when he found out I installed robotic mowers as part of my job he was mortified! He said it’s such a shame people mow their lawns to within an inch of its life and never leave enough for the bees, birds, insects and other natural wildlife. This got me thinking as a few days before I had been to see a customer regarding installing a Stihl iMow in his garden. This garden was very much laid out with wildlife in mind with plenty of wild grass areas, bee-friendly flower borders including several occupied beehives and wildflower areas amongst all this. In the end, there were more mown grass pathways than lawns!
The layout of the garden set me a challenge as the iMow would have to navigate all the pathways and lawn areas leaving the wild areas untouched but also being able to find its way back to the docking station without going around and around the islands. This involved laying out the area as if all the islands were a lawn edge and not an isolated area, this way the iMow would do a regular edge mow once a week and keep all the wild areas in perfect shape. There were also sections of lawn with new shrubs and trees to keep cut, these were programmed into the iMow as start points to make sure the machine got to these lawns regularly enough to keep them cut. All in all, once all the cable had been laid the machine worked perfectly and kept the pathways clear and the wild areas in check giving the perfect blend of beautiful lawn and essential wildlife-friendly wild grass and flower areas.
iMow working its way through the pathways Nice mowed lawns an still loads left for the wildlife
So with all this in mind, and to answer the question “aren’t robot mowers destroying our wildlife habitats?” the answer is, no it doesn’t have to, it’s up to you to design areas of your gardens that allow the wildlife to thrive. The machines are more than capable of tackling a garden with wild areas and lawn areas, and can even be installed to allow certain areas to grow a little wild. They are also clean-running and quiet so will not disturb animals and birds. We do advise that you have your machines mowing during the day as things like our beloved Hedgehogs like to do their food foraging at night and may fall foul to being disturbed by the iMow.
These machines consume very little power to charge their batteries and as a result, have a vastly smaller carbon footprint than a normal petrol mower or ride-on. There are no fumes to pollute the air and no fuel or oil to spill on your lawn. The internal replaceable batteries have a long life and are fully recyclable at end of life, so, unlike the average mobile phone, does not have to be replaced once the battery dies.
All in all these robotic mowers, if installed with a little care and thought can actually do your garden the power of good and be in perfect peace with nature.
If you found this interesting and would like to know more about these machines then, please get in touch, it’s important to help our wildlife as well as keeping a manageable and beautiful garden.
Our natural wild spaces Bee friendly
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