Sharing know-how about UK gardening

These mowers snip like scissors - there's a cylinder of blades that revolves at high speed, trapping and snipping grass with the fixed bottom blade.

And there are more cylinder mowers around than you might have realised - including AL-KO, Atco, Castel, Bosch, Brill, Ginge, and Qualcast.

On gardener-powered mowers, the side wheels or a rear roller drive the cylinder around when you push the mower forwards. With small electric machines, the motor drives the blades around but you still have to push the thing along. On larger electric and petrol-engined machines, the wheels or rear roller are driven along too.

For a traditional striped lawn, you need a heavy rear roller. And although all cylinder mowers are able to collect the grass, most grass boxes for hand machines are sold as optional extras, so ask for the price. Hand machines usually have rear collection boxes, so if you leave off the box, wear wellies or you'll have grass-stained shoes and trousers.