strimmers

[jaymar]

Due to my health my wife is going to have to do most of the gadening for a while.
Weeds are a permanent problem and to help her I thought a strimmer would assist. As she is small I thought a battery powered one would be best but which one?
If anyone has ideas, experience I would appreciate your help

 

[Steve Jones]

Jaymar,

This is my line of work (grass cutting etc) I can't comment on battery strimmers, I use all petrol but what I do for my customers regarding weeds is spray them with round-up. I've tried nearly all the over the counter weedkillers and that's the one that works best for me, as long as it's applied as it should be from one spraying you should get up to 5-6 months weed free before it needs spraying again. Children and animals need only to be excluded from the treated area while the mixture is still wet on the vegetation.

HTH

Steve

I should add that I buy the concentrate to mix myself and not the ready mixed.

 

[Lons]

Jaymar,

This is my line of work (grass cutting etc) I can't comment on battery strimmers, I use all petrol but what I do for my customers regarding weeds is spray them with round-up. I've tried nearly all the over the counter weedkillers and that's the one that works best for me, as long as it's applied as it should be from one spraying you should get up to 5-6 months weed free before it needs spraying again. Children and animals need only to be excluded from the treated area while the mixture is still wet on the vegetation.

HTH

Steve

I should add that I buy the concentrate to mix myself and not the ready mixed.

Steve

Have you not got a sprayers' licence?

I'm surprised you don't use the good stuff - over the counter weedkiller is rubbish really isn't it?

I don't use roundup personally but use relay-P or glysophate derivative which does the job nicely.

(wouldn't be available to you Jamar and I can't help with the strimmer as I use petrol as well.)

regards
Bob

 

[Steve Jones]

Bob,

I've never bothered with PA1 or PA6 sprayer's license as all my work is with domestic customers and also the amount of spraying I do doesn't really warrant it. I quite agree about the quality of over the counter weed killers. The company I used to work for quite a few years ago, before I went self employed used to use a granular product called caseron-g (spelling ? ) which was very effective but for licensed users only.

Apologies to Jaymar for going off topic.

Steve

 

[Michael7]

I use Relay-P also, kills everything. The only size I see is 5ltr but you'll use it all anyway no matter what size of garden.

If a petrol strimmer is set up and ballanced right with the user its a real help.

 

[dickm]

If you are going down the strimmer route, then some of the battery powered ones are "OK-ish". But a petrol one is probably the best answer for anything more than a small garden. I've got a (secondhand) Stihl FS55, which is fine, but quite heavy. See what your local garden machinery (NOT necessarily the same as your local garden centre) dealer has, and try them for weight - the Stihl is quite heavy and you'll need a harness (and proper face/ear/foot protection) to use it.

 

[big soft moose]

If you are going down the strimmer route, then some of the battery powered ones are "OK-ish". But a petrol one is probably the best answer for anything more than a small garden. I've got a (secondhand) Stihl FS55, which is fine, but quite heavy. See what your local garden machinery (NOT necessarily the same as your local garden centre) dealer has, and try them for weight - the Stihl is quite heavy and you'll need a harness (and proper face/ear/foot protection) to use it.

isnt that the lightweight stihl :lol: - mine is an FS400

 

[squib]

Ever thought about getting a goat?














Me neither

 

[misterfish]

I've never used a battery strimmer, but would not expect such a device to work for a great length of time without recharging.

I have used a mains strimmer and was underwhelmedwith it. It could effectively strim lawn edging to give a neat edge to flower beds, but the strimming nylon cord was very thin and as soon as it hit anything of any real substance it broke and I spent more time feeding out more line than actually strimming.

I've had a couple of petrol strimmers, My first was a Hsquvarna(?) which was good but could be difficult to start. I now have a 'Robin' which is nicer to use - not so heavy and starts without any real hassle. I have found that it is always worthwhile going to a local garden machinery seller. They have always been knowledgable and offered competitive deal.

Misterfish

 

[bugbear]

I suspect this is one of those perverse scenarios where the knowledge and experience of full time people is completely inapplicable (one might loosely say "wrong", but the word is a little loaded) to the question at hand.

A full time gardener is obviously going to buy a powerful, reliable, go anywhere, (possible heavy and noisy) run all day strimmer, which may well be completely inappropriate to the odd genteel Saturday morning "tidy up".

BugBear

 

[OldWood]

I suspect this is one of those perverse scenarios where the knowledge and experience of full time people is completely inapplicable (one might loosely say "wrong", but the word is a little loaded) to the question at hand.

A full time gardener is obviously going to buy a powerful, reliable, go anywhere, (possible heavy and noisy) run all day strimmer, which may well be completely inappropriate to the odd genteel Saturday morning "tidy up".

BugBear

I will give Jaymar the type of information he is asked for :twisted:

My daughter's partner does gardens and things, and got the opportunity of buying one of the Ryobi One + items with three lithium-ion batteries. He offered me one of these so I bought the drill and then a spare battery and then the strimmer.

Because Alan goes from garden to garden and doesn't have access to the mains necessarily, he uses battery tools and for his general tidying up work he finds them fine.

The strimmer is fine, but you will need two batteries. It's light, will do light work and doesn't have a trailing cord (hurray!), and I haven't had bother with the cable breaking as much as a mains one I had. I suspect the latter is because the 1.6mm cable is too light and breaks easily with the power of a mains driven strimmers. Interestingly the batteries have a chip that switches them off when the charge is running low so you don't get the 'run-down' warning of other rechargeables. You get about 3/4hr useage out of one charge.

Rob

 

[Dibs-h]

If you are going down the strimmer route, then some of the battery powered ones are "OK-ish". But a petrol one is probably the best answer for anything more than a small garden. I've got a (secondhand) Stihl FS55, which is fine, but quite heavy. See what your local garden machinery (NOT necessarily the same as your local garden centre) dealer has, and try them for weight - the Stihl is quite heavy and you'll need a harness (and proper face/ear/foot protection) to use it.

isnt that the lightweight stihl :lol: - mine is an FS400

Yep mines similar - but a 4 stroke Honda powered beast with harness. :wink:

 

[RogerS]

When I researched this for LOML, the Worx seemed to get reasonable reviews on the Argos website (66 reviews at the last count).

On the subject of Round-Up, are you guys saying that the concentrated Round-Up is no good? We used to buy it from the agricultural counter in the good old days when it was Midland Shires Farmers and it was good stuff. Then MSF sold out to that naff fine-weather snippy-snip chain called Countrywide and the last lot of Round-Up simply doesn't do the job. So whether or not RoundUp has changed or Countrywide sells inferior weakened rubbish, I'm not too sure.

 

[jaymar]

Thanks everyone. A petrol strimmer is out of the question, my wife is less than 5 ft tall ond one year short of 70. The Ryobi sounds interesting ,thanks outwood. I also saw a sales pitch on the teli for the Worx so I will have to make some decisions.

 

[Steve Jones]

Jaymar,

How big an area are we talking about ?

I still think spraying is a better option. Spray once and then 5-6months to to forget about the weeds

Steve

Roger the round-up I buy is the concentrate to mix myself in my own sprayer, the last bottle I bought a few weeks ago was about £20 for 750ml from B&Q. I sprayed a customers drive the week before last and within 5 days everything was brown.
I have used the ready mixed round-up and IMO it's useless.

Steve

 

[Lons]

When I researched this for LOML, the Worx seemed to get reasonable reviews on the Argos website (66 reviews at the last count).

On the subject of Round-Up, are you guys saying that the concentrated Round-Up is no good? We used to buy it from the agricultural counter in the good old days when it was Midland Shires Farmers and it was good stuff. Then MSF sold out to that naff fine-weather snippy-snip chain called Countrywide and the last lot of Round-Up simply doesn't do the job. So whether or not RoundUp has changed or Countrywide sells inferior weakened rubbish, I'm not too sure.

Roger

the stuff you used to buy is now a "controlled" substance and the dealers are not allowed to sell it to you unless you have a "sprayers licence".
They must record the sale for possible trace.

The powers that be have decided that the guy in the street is no longer responsible enough to avoid killing himself or someone else with it :? and therefore if you don't have the proper accreditation then the only way you could get hold of some is if you have a good mate who is a farmer or contractor who does and is prepared to take the risk of selling you some.

Round up is a brand name which I think has now run out of patent (might be wrong) and is therefore available in generic form but is very different from the watered down versions you can buy "over the counter".

The "good" stuff is highly concentrated, available at around £30 - 35 + VAT. for 5 litres and up to I think 25 litre containers. As I dont think you can buy in smaller quantities, it would be far too much for you anyway.

I have about 1 1/4 acres and a hell of a lot of hedge. I spray twice a year under the hedges, over some rough ground and the garden and long gravel drive. Do it all with 1 fill so if just for that, 5 litres would last me 10 years :!: :!: - I use a backpack sprayer at the rate of 250ml / 20 litres (1/80) and it is extremely effective and harmless to livestock after about 2 hours / when dry.

Note:- I'm not saying that the retail stuff won't do the job - just that it's bloody expensive for what is mostly water :roll:
regards

Bob

 

[OldWood]

The powers that be have decided that the guy in the street is no longer responsible enough to avoid killing himself or someone else with it :?

I do just wonder if the decline in bees, etc could be traced to weedkillers. I wonder if any one is looking at that.

Rob

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for that, Bob. This is what SWMBO has been using. Apologies as we're going OT a bit.

http://www.roundup-garden.com/which_roundup_product/roundup_gc_1000ml_concentrate.aspx

 

[houtslager]

I use the Ryobi petrol strimmer - very light and quite good at all I throw at it, mind you I put 3mm string into it

Also I use RoundUp costs me €25 per bottle and I dilute it at 1 large whiskey to 5l water. ) after a week everything goes brown, then dies.

Karl

 

[bugbear]

I do just wonder if the decline in bees, etc could be traced to weedkillers. I wonder if any one is looking at that.

Rob

I'd have thought so, yes, in addition to pesticides and fungicides.

BugBear