Our Favorite Lawn Mower

Our backyard takes a beating. Six kids, a slip-and-slide summer, and a dog worth of foot traffic means the grass grows in uneven bursts, and mowing it had become Dad’s least favorite Saturday chore thanks to a temperamental gas mower that needed coaxing, fuel, and a small prayer every single time. Between the fumes and the pull-cord workout, cutting the lawn was eating an entire morning he did not have to spare.

We switched to the Greenworks 21-Inch Corded Electric Mower, and the difference was immediate: plug it in, squeeze the handle, and it just runs. No gas cans in the garage where little hands roam, no oil changes, no yanking a cord twenty times in front of an audience of amused children. The 21-inch deck is wide enough to get through our yard in a reasonable stretch, which is the whole point when there is always someone who needs you back inside.

We weighed the cordless battery models too, but for a yard our size the battery ones we liked kept dying halfway through, and buying spare batteries pushed the price well past this one. At around three hundred dollars, the corded Greenworks skips that problem entirely — steady power, nothing to recharge, and far less that can go wrong over the years. Managing the cord takes a little practice, but that is a small trade for a mower that starts every time and asks almost nothing of us in return. For a busy household, reliable won.