As part of our new demonstration garden at our office here in Petaluma we installed a native turfgrass lawn with subsurface irrigation. This represents a leap forward in water efficiency and sustainability, but now the question is, how do we mow it?

We wanted a lawn mower that would be cost effective, and we just needed it for office use. Getting the administrators out to mow the front lawn is similar to the idea of the company CEO using the copy machine from time to time.

After searching on Amazon.com and with help of user reviews we settled on 24 volt battery powered mower by Earthwise. So far we have been impressed. Power is good, and the deck height accommodates the 2-6″ recommended mowing height for the Native Bentgrass lawn. Plus the mower requires no gas, and doesn’t have the polluting emissions of a small engine lawn mower. The only problem we found in our search was that some reviewers complained about the possibility of damaging the battery if left to charge too long.

While it wouldn’t work for a commercial application this seems like an ideal mower for a homeowner with a small to mid-size lawn.