One of the questions you must ask about lawns.

When you are house sitting you get lawns from pocket handkerchief to huge. We've had everything from almost nil, a sandy little patch, to one and a half acres. If course we always asked about the size of the land, and what the home owner needed done while we were there, but we found out the importance of asking more detailed questions after a house sit in NSW.

The little sandy lawn took almost no looking after, it was in South Australia, dry, right beside the beach, and mid summer, so the grass hardly grew at all. Currently we are on one acre, and use a normal lawn mower for the flat area around the house, and Peter does all the sloping areas on a ride-on mower and uses a whipper snipper for part of the harder to reach areas.

However, we did have one house sit that had a very large lawn. We asked how big it was, and was told it was one and a half acres, but we didn't ask if they had a ride on. That was a mistake. We had already met the people when they were on holiday a couple of months earlier in the area we were already sitting. They were a lovely couple and told us all about the house which sounded really nice. We arrived, stayed the night with them and they left early the next morning. It wasn't until we got there we realised there was no ride-on mower.

Above: Part of the front lawn and drive.

At this point, I must be very fair, and tell you that they made it quite clear that if we needed to get people in to mow the lawns we could do that. They left us an envelope with more than enough money to cover any lawn mowing costs or other emergency costs, which was very good, but still, we were reluctant to spend their money unless it was absolutely necessary.

This home was really nice, big, spacious, fabulous kitchen, large pool, friendly outside only dog, haha, but huge gardens. He was a newly semi retired farmer, and quite fit, and he used to get outside and mow for the exercise and to keep himself busy on his little piece of land.

Above: Part of the back yard.


That land was flat, with many trees, and on what must have been prime furtile farmland before housing was established. It was midsummer, there had been quite a bit of rain, and it was fabulous grass growing weather.

Peter decided to get out the mower after a couple of days and start. Well, it took several long stints over a couple of days to get it done. The lawns were lush and thick, and looked lovely once mowed. But as soon as you had finished and sat down to enjoy your hard labour, you could see the grass growing again! Around the house he used the catcher but for the rest of the area he mulched it into the lawn. The whole area looked really good, but honestly, you could just hear the grass sniggering as it reached for the sky hour by hour.

After the first week or two, and already several mowings, I decided I would need to help too. There were two mowers, so we both got out there, pushing these mowers up and down and round and round the trees, trying to keep ahead of it all. It was a massive job.

Above: More back yard.


One time, after a few days of heavy rain, we tried to get someone with a ride-on to come and mow it over once, but they were too busy, so we got out there again. In the end, we enjoyed the work, and the exercise, but it was not quite what we expected. A couple of days before the owners came home we started the mowing rounds for the last time, this time catching it all, and I was the wheel-barrow girl, taking barrow after barrow of clippings to the huge compost areas they had at the back. The barrow was full after every three catchers full, so it was run to the compost, run back  because the next catcher full was ready for me.

Above: Are we there yet?  Nearly!

So when you are asking about the lawns, don't assume they have a ride-on mower for large areas of grass. Not everyone does!