The Best Manual Lawn Mowers

Check out our comparison guide for the top rated manual lawn mowers currently on the market.

The comparison table below features 6 columns:

• The model name/manufacturer and picture
• The cutting width in centimetres
• The grass collection box capacity in litres
• Other unique or notable features
• Price guide – Based on the approximate current selling price from Amazon. The prices change frequently depending on availability and special offers. Generally speaking £ = Under £50, ££ = £51– £70, £££ = £70+
• Rating – The average user rating from Amazon UK reviews. This gives a good indication of how satisfied people are with their purchase.

Manufacturer and Model	Cutting Width (cm)	Grass Box Capacity (litres)	Other features	Price	Rating
Einhell GE-HM 38 S-F Hand Push Mower	38	26	Padded handlebar	££	4.5
VonHaus 30cm Manual Cylinder Garden Lawn Mower	30	23		£	4.0
Webb Hand Push Mower	33	13	Effective grass roller	££	4.0
Trueshopping Hand Push Mower		15		£	4.0
Bosch Manual Lawn Mower	38	25		££	3.5
Einhell GCHM30 30 cm GC-HM Hand Push Lawn Mower	30	16		£	3.5

Electric lawn mowers might be pretty commonplace these days (not to mention that they’re very affordable) but despite this there still exists a demand for manually powered push lawn mowers. Why is this? you might ask. Well there are a number of reasons why you might wish to ditch electricity in favour of elbow grease, and not just because you can pick one up for less than 50 quid. Other great advantages to manual lawn mowers include:

• They are lightweight. Typically weighing less than 5kg, these things are easy to get a good command of for just about anyone. For instance if you’ve got a bored 10 year old looking for something to do and a bit of pocket money, having a push mower might just be the answer.
• They don’t require any fuel, mains supply or battery. This might seem obvious, but think about how much hassle all of those things can be. With a push mower you know that as soon as you get it out of the shed you’ll be good to go, wherever you are. This is particularly useful if you have some grass to cut in an isolated location such as an allotment.
• They don’t take up too much room. With no engine or battery to worry about push mowers are incredibly simple in their design, they aren’t much more than a couple of wheels with a cylinder blade between them, a grass box (which is usually fabric), and a handle bar. This means that not only can they be stored in a small space, but you also stand a good chance of hanging them on the wall for storage.
• They are (relatively) easy to maintain. There are no spark plugs to clean or replace, and you don’t need to worry about replacing fuses, batteries, or oil. Generally speaking manual lawn mowers are pretty easy to maintain, a little oiling here and there and you’ll be good to go, the only real exception to this is the cylinder blade itself. In order for any cylinder blade to function properly it will need to be set up correctly as well as regularly sharpened. Both of these tasks require a fair amount of care and attention, but there are professional services available if you need them

Of course manual lawn mowers aren’t for everyone, if you’ve got a garden of more than about 40 square metres you might find it a real grind to do the job effectively with a manual mower. Here are a few more potential drawbacks you might want to consider:

• Small grass collection box. As manual mowers are small, compact beasts, so too are their grass collection boxes. In fact these are more of a token effort really, and a lot of people complain about their ineffectiveness at actually collecting grass
• The motion you must take when using a manual mower is strictly straight ahead only. If you use any kind of back and forth ‘vacuum cleaner’ type movements you will restrict the effectiveness of the mower