Commercial mowers? Seriously? In my opinion, no homeowner should ever consider going commercial. There really is little to no point in doing so. I use an HRC-216 from Honda when I help my father-in-law with his landscape business, and while it is a great machine, it is way more than I would ever need for ~52 times a year. Also, when something does go wrong, they are very expensive to fix. My advice for the OP is to sharpen the blade on the reel he has now and get it working well. Maybe add a weedeater, probably electric, so you don't have to store gas. If the reel has a hard time with your type of grass then go with a cheap mulching mower, gas or electric. When you find yourself with a larger lawn, then consider a premium residential mower like a Super Recycler or Honda. What you want to look for at that point is a decent engine and non-rusting deck. Also, if you do not need self-propelled, don't get it. It adds to the cost and complexity of the mower and is one more thing that can break. Looking at your lawn, a large self-propelled commercial would almost be more of a hassle to use than something smaller and more nimble like the reel mower you have or a 19"ish electric. Also, the money you save could be put towards more landscaping. There are plenty of plants and such that are drought resistant. That would do far more to beautify your lawn than a mower.

google growing st. augustine grass north florida. go to uf website. tons of info. has fertilizer schedules for low medium and high maitenance lawns. it is all about numbers. applying the right thing is knowing basic math. 3-4 pounds of nitrogen a year. you need to find out how many square feet of sod you have. research herbicides for st. augustine grass online. buy professional product. celsius is a good one you can apply in hot and cold weather. follow directions to a t. you need to apply a pre emergent in a few weeks. find a lesco or john deere landscapes near you and ask them what is being put out in your area and how. remember, calibrate your equipment, buy quality equipment, its all about weight of product to your sod square foot. and remember a little more is not better.

Hi Des! This is a subject of great interest and frustration to me. Although my yard is less than 10% St. Augustine grass, that still means about 3500 sq ft. of lawn. The rest of my yard I handle in a completely organic manner. The most pesticides I use elsewhere are Bt, occasional iron phosphate granules for snail control, and recently, a little diatomaceous earth. I've tried to be completely organic with the lawn, and I come close, but fall short. No problem with fertilizers. The grass responds beautifully to once yearly soybean meal or alfalfa pellets (cheap), and a mulching mower is a must to preserve nutrients. In the late winter, early spring I sometimes use corn gluten meal (expensive) as a pre-emergent (only moderately effective IMO), and a potent fertilizer/greening agent (wow, really gets green). Recently, I filled in thin areas with a little compost, but I never have enough and it seems a waste to use it on the lawn. Weeds are not a big issue for us. We are the only ones who take care of our lawn, so our little mower never goes to other lawns to pick up weed seeds. My DH is an avid weed picker in the lawn and has done a great job in ridding almost all weeds. He's developed an incredible eye for any tiny weed that might get going! Chinch bug is where the problem lies for us. Every year around late May or sometime in June we start seeing suspicious areas. I do a chinch bug test (flooding an area with water to see if you see them scampering up the blades). Where I can prove to myself that there is a problem, I spot treat the area with a several foot margin with a product called allectus. This is in no way organic, although it seems one of the less evil choices. It is a combination of imidacloprid (what we put on our dog for flea prevention), and bifenthrin (a synthetic pyrethroid). Both chemicals are toxic to bees (better to apply it in the evening when bees are less active), and bifenthrin is toxic to fish. The application rate is very low (which I like), and the likelihood to get in the ground water is very low (good too). Last year I did well with only spot treating and only once during the summer. This summer I had less area, but ended up doing it twice. I hate using this. I keep thinking of ways I can get rid of more grass (HOA is a factor, but we also like a bit of green for us and the dog, throwing a football, etc.). There are times of the year the lawn looks pretty good (spring and fall), but right now the lawn looks kind of thin and tired. I'm sure I have other problems in it I really don't care to know about because I don't want to treat them (fungus?). It is presentable though. I look at other lawns in the neighborhood that have lawn care/ chemical services treating them on a regular, year-round basis, and some look better than ours, others look worse. I am still learning, and each year I hope I can chip away at more and more lawn. Anna

hi, i just picked up my first lawn boy 2 stroke a couple day's ago, looking forward to trying to bring it back to life. big rock hard nuts i think would have an impact on a light weight mower, any mower, especially blades. might have to invest in a good rake and turn this into a 2 part job. from what i've seen and heard those old lawn boys where a durable machine. as a matter of fact, i responded to this ad, it's an hour out but looks like a fun project. emailed last night, haven't heard back from the poster, think it's gone? the 1 i picked up earlier is under "estate sale" a couple posts below. Lawnboy gas mower - $25 hide this posting Lawnboy gas lawn mower with 2 grass chutes and a grass bag. I can't mow my lawn anymore, so don't need it. It did work last year. asking $25