Expert Picks: 6 Best Lawn Mowers for Hills

Customer Review: Okay first of all, I’d just like to say that I am autistic, and I absolutely LOATHE mowing the lawn. The mower is too loud, the vibrating of the handle makes my arms go numb, and I can never quite pull on the cord hard enough to get it started by myself. I always have to find someone else to turn it on for me. And not to mention the fact that the smell of gasoline gives me a headache.So I finally decided to see if any old-fashioned mowers still existed, because I would much rather deal with something slower and time-consuming if it meant I wouldn’t have to deal with using a normal lawn mower.Imagine my surprise when I found that there are /new/ manual lawnmowers, and I can just order them from Amazon!So I decided I had nothing left to lose, and I would give it a try.Best. Decision. EVER.NOTE OF ADVICE: If you have difficulty putting it together (specifically, attaching the handle to the blade part), find someone with more upper-body strength to help you. They’ll get it done in two seconds. (it took me half an hour of attempting to do so before I gave up and waited for my sister to get home so she could help me)Also: it only cuts while you’re pushing it forward, so all you have to do to move it when you’re not cutting is to pull it along behind you.As for cutting grass? I love it. It works perfectly, aside from a few snags on branches that I didn’t notice. If you move it forward and back a few times, you can cut even tall weeds! Much easier than pulling them out by hand in the areas that the normal gas mower can’t reach.It’s not silent, but it’s also not the deafening roar of a gas mower. If I had to describe the sound, I’d say it’s a whooshing sound, and much much quieter than a gas mower. Plus, you don’t have to deal with your arms vibrating and constantly having to turn the mower back on!No more buying gas, no more struggling to pull on the cord hard enough to turn the mower on, and no more complicated wire-pulling to turn it off.All I have to do is push forward, and the grass gets cut. Stop walking, and it stops cutting. It’s easy to maneuver, and it’s not so heavy that I can’t pick it up and carry it up a flight of stairs to my porch if I need to.I’m never using a gas mower again.

Customer Review: My husband did not want to buy this and thought it would be so dumb to have a push lawn mower , that isn’t motorized. But we have a small lawn so there’s really no point in Us having a huge lawn mower that takes gas or electric. So finally I talked him into it And this thing is great the first time you use it if you haven’t Mowed the lawn in a while It will be difficult to mow because of the height of the grass. But after some upkeep , you’ll be fine. The other thing to keep in mind is if you get stuck on a clump of grass. That’s kind of thick. It does take a bit to get it cut but it’s really not bad. Personally, I love mowing the lawn because of this thing. It’s a good workout and it’s quiet , and you can do it at any time of the day , so you’re not disturbing anyone. It’s also light, so if you’re living in a place where you’re in a row home and you’re in the middle this way you can carry it through your house to the front or back. And it’s not too heavy to carry. That way , you don’t have to walk it down the alley or figure out something else. It’s honestly really nice and such a good workout like I said, and it makes me really enjoy mowing the lawn. as a short woman it’s not very hard to push. I am pretty strong but I’m also really short. So big things are kind of hard for me to move if they’re too tall but it’s not bad for me. I’m very much an outdoor person. So I like taking care of the yard and I also love being independent so this way I don’t need to constantly ask my husband who’s super tall to help me pick things up or move them. And I can just do it on my own. I wish we never got away from using lawn mowers like this. It really is great, especially if you have a small lawn, but even if you had a big lawn and you like being outside doing yard work And just working out in general , it’s such a great workout , so you should try it. I will say you will need someone to help you put it together if you need a lot of upper body strength. So my husband helped me put the rest together. Because I had a hard time hooking the blades in but it was great. It didn’t take long to put together either.

Customer Review: Coming up year 3 with this, a great purchase!! Fairly easy to put together, and to operate. I use it on a 1/2 acre lawn area out of about 2 acres….. works very well!

Customer Review: Once I mastered how to operate the electric lawnmower mowing the lawn was easy breezy. A powerful mower cut through thick grass worked well got the job done in no time. Overall a good purchase worked well for large yard space. Assembly was easy folding the handles down for storage space a plus.

Customer Review: Anyone can put this together in less than 5 minutes. All’s needed is a fraction of upper body strength in order to snap on the handle bar assembly. No tools required besides your bare hands. Best Mower I have ever owned. Period. I no longer worry about an extension cord getting in the way, gas not keeping the thing oiled besides using wd40 to keep the rust off and things running smoothly. People suggest it’s a work out, well I say it’s equivalent to owning a rotary manual push lawn mower (The ones with a loud motor). Takes just as much force and energy! I have seen an 80 year old push Reel mowers easily.. If your Grass is so long use weed eater first then reel. Watch for rock as hitting one can knock the bed blade out of alignment but easily fixed. So far after my first cut it seems to be holding together! Someone said the tires are rubber but that’s not true more of a soft hard plastic but even in slight dry mud it maneuvered extremely well! I didn’t see a lot of people using the bag so I wanted to say the bag works great with some minor adjustments to the clip strap I was able to mow my entire yard by pushing the clipping to the back and filled the bag all the way to the top! My yard is large. Went through crab grass, weeds easily. Cut quality superb much better than any rotary! After I was done I wiped it down best I could, clean it and hit it with some wd40 including the blades. Highly recommended! By the way 1 reviewer said his stopped moving…Thats because you probably hit a rock and the blades are hitting the bed blade to much causing it to lock.. you need to actually read your manual there are 2 screws you need to find on the sides and make minor adjustment to fix that!

Customer Review: I’ve been using a reel mower for a few years now, and I can honestly say it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made for my lawn. Initially, I was a bit intimidated – I’d only ever used rotary mowers – but it turned out to be much easier than I expected, and the results are truly impressive.The biggest advantage is the cut quality. A reel mower slices the grass blades cleanly, like a pair of scissors, rather than hacking at them like a rotary mower. This creates a much healthier lawn that’s less susceptible to disease and pests. The grass looks incredibly lush and even, almost like a golf course. It’s a noticeable difference.Beyond the aesthetics, I also appreciate the eco-friendliness of a reel mower. Mine is a manual push model, so it requires no gas or electricity, making it completely emissions-free. It’s also much quieter than a gas-powered mower, which my neighbors appreciate. Even the electric reel mowers are significantly more energy-efficient than traditional gas mowers.While there’s a bit of a learning curve, mastering the reel mower is surprisingly easy. The key is to mow frequently, taking off only a small amount of grass each time. This prevents the mower from getting bogged down and ensures a clean, even cut. It also encourages the grass to grow thicker and healthier.Some people might think reel mowers are only suitable for small lawns, but I’ve found that’s not necessarily true. While they’re certainly great for smaller yards, I’ve seen people use them effectively on larger lawns as well. It just might take a little longer.Overall, I’m thrilled with my reel mower. It gives me a beautiful, healthy lawn, it’s environmentally friendly, and it’s a great way to get some exercise. If you’re looking for an alternative to traditional mowers and want to take your lawn care to the next level, I highly recommend giving a reel mower a try. You might be surprised at how much you love it.

Customer Review: As much as I love gardening, I hate mowing the lawn. I hate lugging my power mower out of the garage and maneuvering it around our cars and all my husband’s junk. I hate the noise it makes. It’s heavy to push and hard to get it into tight spaces. I thought I was at least avoiding the hassle and environmental issues of gasoline by buying an electric rechargeable one. But after a few years the battery stopped holding a charge and they discontinued the replacement batteries, so the whole thing is a giant piece of e-waste now. I didn’t want to buy another one, so I decided to try an old-fashioned reel mower instead.Some of the reviews on this product had me worried. Some people found them hard to push, some said they get caught up on every little tough weed and twig, etc. After using my new Scotts reel mower for the first time, I really don’t understand what those people were talking about. Maybe they were using it on super-high grass, or on wet grass. But the first time I used mine, I found it WAY easier to use than a power mower. It takes up much less space in the garage, and I can just pick it up with one arm and carry it outside. You walk up and down the yard with it, you’re done in a few minutes, and that’s it.I like that this particular model allows you to adjust the height to a maximum of 3 inches. (That’s the height that’s supposed to be healthier for your lawn and better for water conservation, but most reel mowers don’t adjust that high.)There are a few caveats. If you look at my picture where I’ve used the 3″ setting, you’ll see that it doesn’t chop every single blade of grass to a uniform height, like a carpet. Any grass or weeds that grow sideways, or that are tall and flimsy, don’t get trimmed. I did have to bend down to pick a few dandelions it didn’t get. But overall, considering it took me all of 10 minutes to cut it, and without breaking a sweat, I’m pretty thrilled with it.The other thing is that it does not eliminate the need for an edger/trimmer. You can see I had to leave some taller grass at the base of the trees. The one tree has a ring of rocks around it, and I was afraid of damaging the blades. I got closer to the other tree, but I’ll still have to go back and use the weedeater around the base. But then, you’d have the same issue with any other mower as well.Some people complained it gets stuck on sticks and rocks. We had a wind storm the day before I mowed, and I did take a couple of minutes to go out and pick up any sticks that were big enough to stick up out of the lawn. But I certainly didn’t pick up every little twig and seedpod. You can see quite a few of them still in the grass, and the mower didn’t get stuck on any of them. I did have to bend down to pluck up a few dandelions by hand, though, as the mower just bent them over and didn’t cut them. And there were a couple of little spots where I had to go over them a second time, because a few random blades were still sticking up.When I cut my lawn, it had only been about a week since the last trim, so I didn’t have to cut off a lot of length. But if you let your grass get high, the mower is going to be harder to push. And if your grass is REALLY high, the mower might just sort of push it all over instead of cutting it. But that was also true with my old power mower. If you let the grass get really long, you need to go over it with a weedeater, then mow at the highest setting, and then lower it and go over it again. Obviously, it’s better not to let your grass get that long in the first place. But the great thing about the reel mower is that it’s so much easier to use than my power mower, I won’t be nearly as lazy about pulling it out of the garage to use it more often. In fact, as much as cutting the grass can be fun, it was sort of fun.If you’re wondering whether the grass catcher attachment is worthwhile… not really. The trimmings just sort of fly up in the air, and the open-topped bag picks up whatever happens to land in it, but a lot of trimmings still end up in the grass. The trimmings will help mulch your lawn and keep it healthy anyway. I only bought the grass catcher because I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sweep the sidewalk. There was less to sweep up, but I still had to make a quick pass with a broom. I probably won’t return the grass catcher, but if I had it to do over I probably wouldn’t bother with it.Reel mowers are available in a lot of different widths, with this 20″ one being one of the widest available. If you’re wondering what width you should get, the wider they are, the more grass you can cut at once, which means they’re also harder to push because there’s more resistance. That said, I didn’t find the 20″ to be remotely hard to push. (The claims about it being a “good workout” are a bit overblown.) The only reason I could see for getting a narrower one is if you have a lot of really tight spaces in your yard that require some tricky maneuvering. The mower also works better if you are walking quickly, because that makes the blades turn faster. So you have strength or mobility issues that might make it harder for you to push it quickly, that might also be a reason to get one of the narrower models.

Customer Review: After cutting my lawn with a gas-powered mower last summer, I wanted to simplify things. I really don’t want to stress over spark plugs and oil and gasoline, and hoping that my engine will start when I pull the cord. All the maintenance. We already have a car for that. I wanted something I could understand, that worked well. This does the trick. I honestly look forward to cutting the lawn now. It’s a fun experience. I like the 20-in width because you tend to overlap as you travel back and forth across your lawn anyway, so it’s great that you don’t have to do as many passes as you would with a narrower mower. I like not having to make sure I have enough gasoline to cut my lawn, especially as gas has increased in recent months. The only fuel I need is in my body. Our lawn is mostly level, yet this does give me a bit of good exercise, though nothing too extreme at all. What I lose in machine-propelled front-wheel drive I make up for in a healthier heart. I’ll take it. This is much quieter than an electric or gas-powered mower, so I am able to cut grass at 7:00 a.m. before it gets very hot or the day gets busy, and not bother anyone. The first time I used it, my wife didn’t even know I was outside her window cutting grass. I’d been reading up before my purchase, and I learned that a reel mower is better for your grass due to its cutting method, working much more like scissors rather than a rotating horizontal blade that tends to leave the tips of grass brown and leaves behind a trail of “hay” unless you use a bagger on your mower. With several blade height settings that are as easy as popping a little handle out of a notch and then back in around the wheel, it’s also possible to cut the grass much shorter like golf course style than other styles of mowers, if that suits your needs. I share an unfenced lawn with my neighbors, so personally I use a higher blade height in order to match what they’ve cut already with their electric and gas mowers. Many people have said that you need to use a reel mower much more often than a gas-powered mower, but that hasn’t been my experience. If I cut any sooner than weekly (~30 minutes), I find that there’s very little that’s ready to be cut. I’m guessing amount of rain and sunshine and grass type are factors in this, though. All in all, I’m really digging this retro mower lifestyle. Stress-free. Yes, please!

Customer Review: Working fine for me. Easy to use. No battery. Lightweight. No gas. Has enough power to cut tall weeds and grass. I’m almost 72 in good health, fit, I can lift a 50 pound cement bag, that kinda stuff. I didn’t want to smell gas fumes. Yes it will take me longer using an electric mower but I also wanted the grass clippings picked up. More of a manicure lawn look. Sometimes I clip the weeds with my long handle shears then use the mower. I know it’s a long arduous process! But at retired 72 all I got is time and burning calories too. I take the clippings over to my next door neighbors goats sheep and chickens and ducks. They love the fresh cut grass and weeds. I’m cutting the Cal Fire required 100 feet clearance around my house, goats pen and dog house. We have 29 acres and lost everything but one house in the June 2024 Apache Wildfire. Barring some other catastrophic event we will be in good shape if another wildfire happens.

Customer Review: The media could not be loaded. I was trying to find something that would pick up grass clippings before the winter. I did not want to deal gas or batteries. I looked at multiple electric corded push lawn mowers on Amazon. The LawnMaster had the best features, prices and reviews. This little lawn mower exceeded my expectations. It cuts the grass with no issues. The lever to change the height is very convenient. It is very easy to push. The cord was not a nuisance and very easy to deal with while pushing the mower back-and-forth. The collection bag is very easy to remove and dump. I filled up two trash cans of grass clippings in under an hour. I highly recommend this lawn mower.

Customer Review: Update: Decided to keep this mower and have used it 4 times now. I am impressed at what a good job it does at cutting evenly, the bag is plenty big for my small size yard (approx 24’x 60′), and the batteries have plenty of power left at the end of the job. Still not thrilled about the need to use both batteries then charging them separately, but I suppose it would bother me more if I had a bigger yard and ran out of power in the middle of cutting. If one of them does die, I will need to replace, but crossing my fingers they have longevity — at least 2 or 3 seasons. Other than that, still kind of cheap feeling, but the plastic is pretty sturdy and it is very light weight to move all around the tight spaces in the yard.Original review:The mower was delivered timely and the driver was extremely cordial. The Amazon box that it came in was a bit rag tag and the product box had a hole in the top.When I opened the box, it almost looked like this item was returned and re-packaged as there were knobs and bolts scattered throughout the box. All parts appeared to be included in the box.As I assembled it, the mower was smaller than I expected and I am apprehensive about all parts except the bolts, handle, and blade being plastic of very light to light grade-especially the wheels. I charged the batteries immediately, and it’s nice that there is a way to check their charge status with the light on the batteries themselves. Not real thrilled about needing both batteries to run this as it takes over 2 hours to charge both.Once both batteries were charged, I inserted and began mowing the smallest portion of my yard (the entire yard is small at 10’x40′). I just bought this home that has an automatic sprinkler system, so I set the height at 3 to make sure I cleared the sprinkler heads. The mower itself seemed to cut evenly and well, but this yard is really “clumpy” (earthworms, I think). and getting through it was a little challenging with these small plastic wheels (I had to tilt the front and lift the back many times to get through it). It took 20 minutes to finish where my previous lawn took 45 minutes to complete with a self propelled walk behind (120’x75′). Plus the bagger was full after this small section. I charged the batteries before mowing the second half of my yard (took an hour to charge one and 40 minutes to charge the second one and both had at least 1/3 power left).Like the 1st side, this section of the yard is extremely clumpy and has more obstacles than the 1st section (more sprinkler heads, had to move some rocks from neighbors yard, and some downspouts to mow around). It was also a little taller than the 1st section, so I adjusted the height by 1 setting higher. It took 40 minutes to mow this section and I had to empty the bag in the middle of mowing and at the end (this section is 60’x13′). The batteries were strong throughout and the cut was clean and even.My biggest concern is whether this mower will last through one summer with its flimsy plastic parts especially the wheels. I will mow one more time with it to see how it holds up, but I think my skepticism about the construction is leaning toward a return especially if I end up needing to buy a new mower after one season (about 3 months of mowing) when I could spend a little more now for a gas powered with better construction and no need to stop half way through to charge the batteries !

Customer Review: I just love this little lightweight mower. I did half my yard on Sat and the other half on Sunday. It did a really good job and took care of a lot of the weed eating also. With nothing sticking out on the sides, it cuts close against all the trees and shrubs. I hope it holds up for a long time. I love it. Would highly recommend.