A Simple Guide to Lawn Mowing

This paper presents the total time required to mow a two-dimensional rectangular region of grass using a push mower. In deriving the total time, each of the three ‘well known’ (or intuitive) mowing patterns to cut the entire rectangular grass area is used. Using basic mathematics, analytical and empirical time results for each of the three patterns taken to completely cover this rectangular region are presented, and examples are used to determine which pattern provides an optimal total time to cut a planar rectangular region. This paper provides quantitative information to aid in deciding which mowing pattern to use when cutting one’s lawn.