If your lawn is 1,000 square feet or less, a reel mower is an excellent choice. All reel mowers follow the surface contours of your lawn more than a rotary. They reveal humps and hollows that a rotary mower disguises. Reel mowers tend to flatten tall grasses and weeds without cutting them, however. There are two basic types.
Turf professionals use the kind that discharges clippings to the front.
Although these produce the finest cut, you probably don't need one unless you're mowing a golf-course green, or a lawn that looks like one. Short-growing, dense grasses such as bentgrass, hybrid Bermuda, St. Augustine and zoysia look best if cut with a power reel mower. Reel mowers that throw clippings to the rear are more general purpose. Rotary Power Mowers Leonard B. Goodall from Warrensburg, Missouri, invented the push-type rotary mower in 1939. The engine is mounted on a deck supported by four adjustable wheels, all connected to a long handle that has controls for operation.