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CNET
10 hours ago
- Climate
- CNET
This Is the Best Way to Keep Your Grass From Dying in the Summer Heat
Despite the soaring temperatures, mowing the lawn during summer is a necessity, and believe it or not, it's also something that can keep your grass looking sharp and green. If you want to keep your lawn in tip-top shape, there are serious mistakes to avoid, especially during hot weather. With a little strategy and a few easy adjustments, you can turn your lawn from a sorry brown to a glittering green -- and do it in less time. So grab your best mower and read these five essential tips. 1. Keep it long A short trim can cause damage to your lawn, especially during hotter months. Chris Wedel/CNET For some, a perfect lawn is always well-trimmed and consistently kept short. Unfortunately, while this may look nice, it can be a detriment to the overall life of your grass. During the hottest days of summer when your yard is competing with sweltering heat, blazing sun and less rain, it's best to keep the grass about 4 inches high after a cut. That may seem long but taller grass retains more water and has longer, healthier roots. 2. Wait until the grass is dry Mowing when there is still dew on the ground can damage your lawn. Russell Holly/CNET It may seem obvious during the summer when it reaches unbearable temps during the day to try and get started mowing early in the cool morning hours. But if there's still dew on the ground, you can lose time and damage your lawn. This is caused by the high likelihood that wet grass will clump up in the discharge chute (that flappy thing on the side), requiring you to stop and remove the clog. Plus, your mower tires won't get great traction either and could put tracks in your yard. Instead, wait until later in the morning when the dew dries, or mow the lawn late in the day before the evening dew. Also, time your sprinklers to start up in the late evening or at night so there isn't extra moisture on the grass when you mow. Here are some more watering tips for your lawn. 3. Go slower Keep your speeds low to make mowing go fast. Alina Bradford/CNET Short on time or just want to get the chore over faster? Then going fast makes the most sense, right? But while it's tempting to go fast while mowing, it can actually create more work for you. By not taking your time and letting the mower do its job properly, there's a good chance it will leave some areas uncut and give the lawn an uneven, sloppy look. This means you'll have to take more time to re-mow it to make the lawn look correct. Instead, take the path of the turtle -- slow and steady. A slower, mid-speed mowing session is faster and better for your lawn than zooming around the grass and ultimately needing to re-mow it later. Also, remember that the choke needs to be lower for slower speeds to run properly. 4. Be consistent My yard has never had such a professional look. Chris Wedel/CNET Mowing randomly across your lawn can take up more time and lead to an uneven cut. Follow a pattern instead, using this technique: Start on the edge of your lawn with the discharge chute pointing toward your lawn Mow around the perimeter of your lawn When you get to your starting point, make a U-turn so the discharge chute is facing the strip you just cut Keep mowing around the perimeter, making sure the discharge chute is pointed toward where you just mowed. In the end, your lawn will end up with a nice pattern and the discharge chute won't clog. How to Prep Your Lawn Mower for the Season How to Prep Your Lawn Mower for the Season Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 2:58 Loaded : 13.31% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 2:58 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. How to Prep Your Lawn Mower for the Season 5. Prep your mower for the next round Regular maintenance on your mower is important to ensure it is reliable and does a great job each and every time you take it out. Spending a little time after you finish mowing will keep your mower in tip-top shape and lasting longer. Start by turning the mower over and rinsing the blades and discharge chute with a garden hose before putting it away. This will prevent grass from building up, drying out and being much harder to remove. If the air filter on your push mower looks dirty, give it a good wash with some mild dish soap and rinse it with the garden hose. Set the filter aside to dry so you can put it on right before mowing next time. One of the best time savers is keeping your lawn mower blade sharp. A dull blade will require you to go over the same patch of lawn more than once to cut any raggedy bits left behind. A sharp blade allows you to zip around your lawn just once and still get great results. Most mower repair shops will sharpen the blades for a small fee, or you can do it yourself with these tips. FAQs to help you get the best-looking lawn What order should I mow my lawn? It's best to start mowing around the edges of your lawn, with the grass clippings going into your uncut grass. After cutting around the entire perimeter of your yard, turn back around and mow in the opposite direction, with the grass chute pointing toward the perimeter grass you already cut. Continue this mowing direction until complete. Want to make watering your lawn easier? Here's CNET's guide to making your own automated lawn watering system.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Yahoo
Best Laser Cutters and Engravers of 2025
Lately, it seems like more and more people have been delving into their creative sides, and new products are arriving to scratch that creative itch every day. Machines like 3D printers, vinyl cutters and laser cutters are now available at prices to fit just about any pocketbook, and they allow people to bring their creations to life in new and interesting ways. If you have the right materials and machines, you can even turn a profit on stores like Etsy, TikTok and Shopify. I've used laser cutters for years to create anything from small dog tags to leather patches for caps. Each laser engraver I use has various pros and cons, so along with my CNET colleague Russell Holly, I've developed testing criteria to assess the best laser cutters. The xTool P2 is our top pick for the best laser cutter. It isn't the cheapest laser cutter around, but with a host of amazing accessories, fantastic software, and a cutting size and speed that are hard to ignore, it takes the crown from the Glowforge Pro, but just barely. It's huge, so make sure you have room in your workshop to house it. If you are looking for a smaller craft laser, then the Glowforge Aura is great for small projects. You may notice that there are no open laser engravers on this list. After testing several I find them too dangerous for the average user. They could be good for commercial spaces, but having an open laser in a garage is too dangerous to recommend. An enclosed laser beam is far less likely to catch the material on fire. Like the original F1, the F1 Ultra has brought me no end of fun while I've been testing it. There is something special about carving a 3D depth map into a coin, a slate coaster or even a rock from your garden that is hard to match with a standard laser. The F1 Ultra is a mixed laser with a blue diode for standard cutting and engraving and a fiber laser for 3D carving. The F1 Ultra is slightly bigger than the F1 and has the same accessories -- like the rotary system and fluted work surface -- as the F1 too. The best accessory is the conveyor belt, which can be used with the built-in software smarts to engrave batches of the same pattern, so if you need to make 100 more keychains at a convention, you can quickly and easily. See at xTool It's been a while since I've had as much fun with a maker tool as I have had with the xTool F1. It's lightweight and very easy to transport if you go to many trade shows, conferences or farmer's markets and, with the accessories in this bundle, you can etch batches of products as easily as one. The software is excellent too, making it easy to line up projects or trace out new projects from a photo. I recently took the F1 to a STEM fair for primary school kids, and it was extremely popular as it whizzed around cutting out the school logo onto metal business cards. While the price is pretty high for a cutting area this small, you could easily make your money back with just a little work at a farmer's market stall or two. It's well worth the investment. See at xTool The WeCreat is a fun little box that can etch and cut several materials. It isn't going to carve through thick wood or steel, but it makes fun projects for family fun time. I think it's perfect for schools, especially with its exhaust filter, as the enclosure and air assist make it safe for classrooms and stop little fingers from getting burnt. I created several projects for my kid's kindergarten class, and the teachers all loved the software isn't quite as good as Xtool or Glowforge, the camera is accurate and lets you mark where your material is well. It even has testing squares, so you can try out any material and see what power level you need. That's something all laser cutters should have. See at Amazon Testing laser engravers is a mix of objective and subjective measures. We spend time measuring speed and accuracy as well as usability and the overall look of the finished product. These tests are done in our labs and workshops over a month to ensure the lasers can endure proper use. Speed is tested with a good old-fashioned stopwatch. I created a simple CNET logo design that can be cut on multiple materials. We time how long it takes to complete the cut. We use 3mm basswood, 3mm black acrylic and 3.5mm cardboard for our testing materials, to give us a good overall view. We then compare the speed with the software to see how accurately it calculates the cutting speeds. The engraving is done with an image of my beautiful dog, Indiana Bones. I import that image into the workspace and use 3mm basswood for the material. I use the standard engraving settings from each machine to engrave Indy onto the wood. My CNET colleague Russell Holly and I then examine the wood laser cut for image quality. We're looking at contrast, the level of detail captured, and how grainy the surface engraving is, as well as considering our opinion on the overall quality. I created an accuracy test for laser cutters with cameras. I designed a file with 10mm and 5mm increments. The file is printed on standard paper and imported into the laser cutter software. From there, we use the laser cutter camera to align the physical marks to the digital and set the laser to cut. Once the laser is finished, we measure the offset using a micrometer to see how accurately the camera represents the paper image. This is especially helpful for lasers with fisheye lenses.
