The Green, Green Grass of Home (Qualcast Panther 30)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Qualcast Panther 30
Date:	03/09/09 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Works well, long lasting, cheap

Disadvantages: Noisy

The grass is always greener. I spent a couple of years living in a fabulous city apartment and wasted many a summer afternoon bemoaning my lack of garden. Now living in quasi-suburbia (3 miles up the road), and having acquired a house with gardens, plural, and lawns, plural, all I can think is that I didn't appreciate the good old days when lawn mowing never featured on my weekend To Do list. I bought this lawn mower the week after I moved into my house in 2007, based on a complex calculation of which one to get whereby I picked the cheapest one in Argos, at about £35, and I'm pleased to say it has lasted reasonably well.

This is a push-mower, which, in a fit of green-minded madness, I decided was the kind I needed so as not to waste electricity when simple, chocolate-fuelled brute force would do the trick. It is a decision I am still living with, but despite the hassle involved, I'm not really regretting my purchase. That's not to say I don't covet those ride-on tractor style mowers, and wouldn't ditch all my green principles for a go on one of those, but really, in south Manchester it would just look rather silly for the few hours that would pass before someone came along and nicked it. They've already taken my wheelie bin, and that's nowhere near as cool to ride on.

The lawn mower comes ready to be assembled. You have to fix the two parts of the handle together, and attach the bucket to catch the grass. None of this is too tricky, nor do you need special tools unless you yourself are a bit special. As for me, I once assembled an entire living room's full of furniture single handedly despite the Ikea instructions that the work required 2 men (I'd make a women vs. men joke if it weren't so obvious). I wasn't going to let a measly little lawn mower phase me.

Once it was all put together, I went out to mow the month's worth of growth on my lawns, the former owners clearly having stopped taking any care of how things looked the second we exchanged contracts. Here's a little fact for you: push mowers like short grass, and the longer the grass, the more you have to, well, push. By the time I was done with my 3 (count 'em) lawns, I had some idea of what childbirth must be like. It was based on this initial trial of the mower that I vowed to stay on top of things and make some attempt to mow the lawns every week, since I really didn't want to have to go through all that again. While there have been times when circumstances (like being abroad, or it raining too much) have meant it's been a fortnight or more since I last cut the grass, every time this happens I go through the same grunt and grate routine, and it spurs me back into my weekly maintenance routine . You'd think it might, but it never gets easier.

And yet, for standard day-to-day (or week-to-week) lawn mowing, this is not a bad mower. It is incredibly easy to use because you just get it out of the shed, drop it down on the nearest bit of grass and push until you get to the end, turn round and repeat. You don't have to worry about keeping the wire out of the way, or being too far from a plug or extension cord, nor is the price of electricity an issue. The curved handle is comfortable, and you can choose how to hold it, either at the sides, or on top with your hands over or under the thin bar. Some may find it a bit thin - even my freakishly tiny hands wrap all the way round - but it's fine for me, and if your fingers do overlap too much, you can just push it with flat palms instead.

The mower has two length settings, a feature beyond what I would have expected for a budget buy. I tend to keep it on the one that cuts the grass very short which is both a good thing and a bad one. Good, because it means if it is 10 days or so between cuttings, the regrowth is still easily attacked, bad because it tends to leave a pattern on your lawn if you're not careful. If you wanted to, you could use this to your advantage and mow in some fancy-ass Wimbledon style stripes. I really have no desire to do this. But, because I also have no desire to spend longer huffing and puffing than I need to, and because my weekend attention to detail ends the second I put down my Blackberry (after sending the essential 'look at me, working at 7am on a Saturday morning' email), I often inadvertently end up with stripes. Not nice, even, attractive stripes, but 'a mad man got loose and attacked the lawn with his teeth' style stripes. Sorry, dooyoo team, but I will not be 'making my neighbours envious this season by having the best lawn on the block'. Though I may be making them furious because...

Another issue is the noise this thing makes. I often hear other mowers on the street, but none ever seem quite as bad as this one, though it may simply be my proximity to it. I am always mindful of this early on a weekend morning, when I'm convinced the racket will awaken said neighbours. It is a proper 'clatter clatter' noise as the blade chops, and gets worse when it hits the patio bit at one end of my garden. I have been known to 'mow' the patio, in an attempt to skip the weeding my tiles require, so it is entirely my fault, but still. When I'm moving from the front to the back garden or vice versa, I tend to lift the machine up rather than drag it along, as the noise is quite unbearable. Luckily it is an extremely lightweight mower, and I can carry it fairly easily with one hand, while unlocking the back gate etc. It is a tiny bit too tall, but then I am a tiny bit too short, and I still manage. Normal sized people should have no trouble.

As mentioned earlier, the mower takes a little more effort when the grass is longer, but also if the grass is wet. Sometimes you have to mow slightly-damp grass in Manchester, as the alternative is waiting a week and it being that extra bit too long, so it's a catch 22 situation. When it does require more umpf, you can just lean into it to get it going again. I may not weigh enough to be able to give blood (my random fact of the week last week) but I'm still heavy enough to kick this back into gear. My only niggle in this area is that sometimes to get it going you have to get right behind it and tilt the handle at an angle, and my garden has grass right up to various walls and sheds. The result is that I end up with the middle bit mowed shorter than the sides as I always have to start it a little way in, which is added to by the fact that although the mower cuts 30cm strips at a time, the blade stops a little inside the wheels, so you can't go up to the edges anyway. Of course I could use a strimmer to finish off the edges but, please, I have better things to do with my weekends.

The blade deals with most things ok (leaves, berries, the odd kamikaze snail), but I have one tree in my garden whose long, reedy bits upset it, and then it will just stop and not go any further until you stick your fingers in and pull out the offending item in one swift motion, like in those clever adverts for detergent where they whip the table cloth out from under a table laid with a whole lot of breakable porcelain filled with potentially messy treats. This weekend it got upset by a manky, soggy tissue which I hadn't removed from the lawn precisely because it was too gross for me to want to touch it. Of course, it got stuck and I had to, but I would still run the risk in future of leaving stuff like this there and hoping the blade would just slice through it. The mower has been used over 50 times now, and the blade shows no sign of becoming blunt or less effective, but is also not so nastily sharp you lose the tips of your fingers any time you have to prise something out of its jaws.

The mower came with a plastic bucket, which I dutifully attached, and for the first lawn mowing season, this worked well. The grass flew out at just the right angle to be caught, it held a decent amount, and when I needed to empty it into my green bin, I could detach it easily and then re-attach it to carry on. However, one day, the bucket came a bit loose on one side. I noticed one of the screws was missing, but couldn't find it anywhere, and had no suitable replacement in my snazzy tool box so I just balanced the bucket back on carefully and continued. This worked for a few more weeks, until one day the bucket just fell off the hinge and would not stay on again. This is perhaps a downside of buying a cheaper mower, but still not a major headache for me. Since the mower can be used in two ways, with or without the bucket, I decided to go for the second option. This doesn't affect the quality of the cut in any way, but does leave you with freshly chopped grass all over your lawn. Some people say you're supposed to then rake this up. These people clearly do not live in Manchester - I am lucky if I can mow all 3 lawns in between the drizzle, let alone scoop up the grass afterwards, but every rain cloud has a silver lining, and up here it's really not long before a wind picks up and helpfully blows the cuttings towards my neighbours' houses and beyond. Good stuff.

My mower lives in my shed which has walls and a roof, but also a window missing glass, and just a too-small piece of material covering the gap. It sits there for at least 8 months of the year without being moved, and also goes back in after every outing, but has yet to show signs of rust or neglect. I am perhaps a little rough with it as I'll fling it in without much care, but there is nothing really to break on it, as the blade is quite sturdy and the bucket hinge having already given up the ghost, and of course there's no electric circuitry to upset.

This is the first push mower I have ever used, so I don't have much scope for comparison, but from my experience I would certainly recommend it. The price has since fallen to just below the £30 mark which is a true bargain in my eyes, and I just cannot see the point in bothering to pay more for a relatively boring piece of household kit. It's basic, but it works, is quite sturdy and hard-wearing, has no maintenance or fuel costs, is super simple to use and it won't break the bank.

http://www.qualcast.co.uk/cylinder/panther30.html

Summary: An excellent basic mower, for when you have better things to spend your money on