40 Fun Facts About Lawn Mowers

Under which U.S. president did sheep graze the White House lawn, their wool auctioned for the Red Cross?

Woodrow Wilson's wife Edith set the flock grazing during World War I so that no manpower was spent on mowing, the same spirit as her gasless Sundays.

Why did the ponies that pulled Victorian lawn mowers across grand estates wear leather boots on their feet?

To prevent hoofprints, gardeners also preferred lightweight ponies to horses once the first animal-drawn mowing machine was patented in 1842.

The Snapper Rear Engine Rider lawn mower won pop-culture fame through its appearance in which Best Picture winner?

Forrest Gump made a star of a mower line that began with the 1951 Snappin' Turtle, named for the way it snapped the grass and for the turtle figurine on its front.

In which hit tower defense game does a single-use lawn mower wait at the end of each lane as a last resort?

Plants vs. Zombies gives each lane one mower that wipes out the whole row when an attacker reaches that end, while pool and roof levels swap in cleaners instead.

Karl Dahlman invented the Flymo lawn mower in 1964 after seeing which invention by Sir Christopher Cockerell?

Hovercraft engineering gave the Flymo a fan that blows air downwards, so the light plastic machine floats just above the grass.

Which author sued to have his name removed from the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man, which barely resembled his story?

Stephen King won in court because the science-fiction film kept almost nothing of his 1975 tale, in which a satyr runs a lawn-mowing business.

Which country star drove a riding lawn mower to a liquor store miles away after his wife hid the car keys?

George Jones later sent the story up himself, parodying the ride in music videos including the one for his own 1996 single Honky Tonk Song.

Before the lawn mower arrived in 1830, which hand tool did gardeners swing to keep fine lawns short?

The scythe was the tool the first mower was built to beat, and the 1830 design was aimed mainly at sports grounds and extensive gardens.

Which safety device on a powered lawn mower halts the cutting action the moment the user lets go of the handle?

A dead man's switch exists because the blades of a powered push mower can injure a careless or inattentive user in an instant.

Which Olympic Games' opening ceremony featured the Victa lawn mower, a backyard icon of the host nation?

Sydney 2000 saluted a machine first built in 1952 by Mervyn Richardson, whose prototype used a peach tin as its petrol tank.

Which engineer from Stroud in Gloucestershire patented the world's first lawn mower in 1830?

Edwin Budding went into partnership with John Ferrabee, who funded the development, and together they built the machines in a factory at Thrupp.

The lawn mower's inventor took the idea in 1830 from a mill machine that trimmed the surface of which material?

Woollen cloth was finished by trimming its irregular nap, and the bench-mounted spinning blades that shaved it smooth became the heart of the mower.

The inventor of the lawn mower is also credited with which workshop tool, which he devised in 1842?

The adjustable spanner, set by turning a screw, followed twelve years after the mower and is known to Americans as a crescent wrench.

One of the earliest lawn mowers ever sold went to which institution, opened in 1828 for scientific study?

London Zoo, then the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, was among the very first buyers, along with the Oxford colleges.

Which lawn mower design shears grass like scissors between spinning helical blades and a fixed bed knife?

Reel mowers, also called cylinder mowers, make the cleanest cut of any type when properly adjusted, which lets the grass heal more quickly.

A typical zero-turn lawn mower, able to pivot on the spot, is steered with what instead of a wheel?

Two lap bars each control one drive wheel, so pushing one forward while pulling the other back spins the machine about its own centre.

A typical early robotic lawn mower found the edge of its patch by sensing what, laid out by the owner?

A boundary wire marked the limit for early machines: they simply bounced around the lawn, changing heading each time they met it.

Which part of a lawn mower lays down the light and dark stripes seen on formal lawns and sports pitches?

The roller at the back does the striping, so a wheeled rotary mower without one cannot give a good finish, and varying the direction each cut stops ruts forming.

What do gardeners call the damage when a lawn mower set too low shaves bumps down to bare patches?

Scalping strikes where there are bumps or tree roots at the surface, which is why rotary mowers are usually set a little higher on uneven lawns.

Some lawn mowers are built for which practice of leaving fine clippings on the turf to feed the soil?

Grasscycling lets the clippings rot down and return their nutrients, sparing the gardener both the bagging and some of the fertiliser.

Which director's only G-rated film follows Alvin Straight crossing Iowa on a riding lawn mower to reach his brother?

David Lynch later called the gentle Disney release his most experimental movie, and it earned Richard Farnsworth a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

In which TV drama does a John Deere riding mower run over a visiting executive's foot during an office party?

Mad Men staged the accident in its third season: a salesman rides the mower in after winning the tractor maker's account, and a joyride at a party for the agency's British owners goes wrong.

In which 1989 comedy does a friend mowing the lawn send the young heroes diving into an earthworm tunnel?

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids pits its tiny heroes against the vortex of the mower until the parents shut the machine off just in time.

Which 1987 teen comedy ends with Patrick Dempsey's Ronald Miller riding off on a lawn mower with a cheerleader?

Can't Buy Me Love has Ronald spend a whole summer mowing lawns to save for a telescope, then hand the $1,000 to Cindy to pose as his girlfriend.

Which actor wrote, directed and starred in Sling Blade, whose hero Karl carries a sharpened lawn mower blade?

Billy Bob Thornton won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 1996 film, which he built around a character from his own one-man show.

Which Peter Jackson splatter comedy, released in America as Dead Alive, ends with a lawn mower turned on the undead?

Braindead reputedly used 300 litres of fake blood for the climax, in which its hero Lionel mows his way through the horde.

In Philip Larkin's 1979 poem The Mower, which animal does the speaker accidentally kill while cutting the lawn?

A hedgehog really died that way, and the machine involved is now kept with the poet's papers in the archive at the University of Hull.

Which band had a lawn mower painted into Betty Swanwick's artwork for the album Selling England by the Pound?

Genesis had it added to an existing painting, The Dream, as a nod to the track I Know What I Like, because the artist had no time to paint a new cover.

What does a so-called lawnmower parent do for a child?

Clears every obstacle sums it up: the lawnmower parent goes a step beyond the helicopter parent by dealing with problems before the child ever meets them.

Which Formula One great shared victory in the first 12-hour lawn mower endurance race, held in Sussex in 1978?

Stirling Moss won alongside fellow racing driver Derek Bell near Wisborough Green, where the actor Oliver Reed, who lived locally, regularly entered a team.

The British Lawn Mower Racing Association was founded in 1973 by pub regulars fed up with which side of motorsport?

Its soaring costs were the gripe of rally co-driver Jim Gavin and friends over a pint at the Cricketers Arms, and racing mowers still run with their blades taken off.

The Twelve Mile 500, a lawn mower race run in Indiana since 1963, takes place each year on which holiday?

Independence Day in the town of Twelve Mile means a 15-mile race of 60 circuits round a quarter-mile track, organised by the local Lions Club.

Which outdoor power brand, founded as a firearms maker in 1689, marketed the first solar-powered robotic lawn mower?

Husqvarna began as a Swedish state rifle works, turned to sewing machines when gun orders fell away in the 1870s, and put its solar mower on sale in 1995.

Which Minnesota company, owner of the Lawn-Boy and Exmark mower brands, began in 1914 building tractor engines?

Toro, the Spanish word for bull, was set up as the Toro Motor Company to build engines for the Bull Tractor Company.

Which Wisconsin engine maker, founded in 1908, launched a lightweight aluminum engine in 1953 for rotary lawn mowers?

Briggs & Stratton began as a bid to cash in on the car boom: its two founders, an inventor and his investor, only later settled on small petrol engines.

Which lawn tractor brand began in 1960 as a premium line of the farm machinery giant International Harvester?

Cub Cadet passed to MTD in 1981 when its struggling parent sold the division, and the models sold through lawn dealers kept the traditional yellow and white livery.

Lawn-Boy mowers were first built in 1934 by Evinrude, a company far better known for engines that power what?

Boats were Evinrude's trade: Ole Evinrude built his first outboard motor in 1907, and Lawn-Boy output paused in 1939 so the firm could make outboards for the war.

The Sumner family, whose early products included steam-powered lawn mowers, co-founded which British truck maker?

Leyland Motors began in 1896 as the Lancashire Steam Motor Company, three years after James Sumner patented the first steam mower.

Which Ipswich maker of ploughs and trolleybuses put a petrol-engined lawn mower on sale in 1902?

Ransomes had been building mowers under licence since 1832, two years after the machine was invented, and led the petrol market until the First World War.

The Ideal gasoline lawn mowers built in Lansing from 1914 used a patent by the founder of which car brand?

Oldsmobile founder R. E. Olds held the patent used by the Ideal Power Mower Company, and his REO firm opened its own lawn mower division in 1946.