When Harper's Bazaar Issued This Year's Annual Trends List, in Among Lust, Frederic Fekkai

Home: Push Mowers : Pinnacle of Backyard Chic By Bill Richards

08/07/1997 The Wall Street Journal Page B1 (Copyright (c) 1997, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) When Harper's Bazaar issued this year's annual trends list, in among "lust," Frederic Fekkai haircuts and wedge heels was an unusual entry: push-powered lawn mowers. Like '50s furniture, fat cigars and martinis, push mowers are getting their second wind. American Lawn Mower Co., which has about 95% of the U.S. push-mower market, sold 250,000 of them last year, up nearly 150% over five years ago. The American Forecaster Almanac, a trend-spotting publication based in Denver, predicts sales of push- powered mowers could hit 300,000 this year and keep climbing at 20% to 30% annually. That's still a tiny bit of turf compared to the 5.5 million power mowers sold annually in the U.S., but push mowers are selling faster now than they did during the 1940s and 1950s, when there were no alternatives. Why? "This lends itself to easy explanation," says Kim Long, American Forecaster's publisher. " Push mowers are cheap, and they're part of a yuppie phenomenon called upscale simplicity." That refers to yuppies' predilection for spending a lot of money on seemingly simple items, such as the $100 hoes and rakes that fancy garden stores sell these days. But there are some other contemporary reasons behind the resurgence of old-fashioned mowers: environmentalism, fitness, shrinking yard sizes and a hefty dollop of nostalgia. "We baby boomers equate real life with the life we lived as children," says Kathleen Tierney, president of Smith & Hawken, the purveyor of upscale garden supplies based in Mill Valley, Calif. Ms. Tierney, a push-mower user herself, says sales of push-powered mowers at Smith & Hawken's 26 stores are booming this summer, at prices up to $275 each. "In search of something real," says Smith & Hawken's president, "we're going backwards." James Hewitt, American Lawn Mower's vice president for marketing, says customers are also yearning for machinery that doesn't require a thick operating manual. "With a push mower," he says, "you pull it off the garage wall and cut grass. It doesn't get any simpler than that." American Lawn Mower is something of a throwback itself. The privately held, 101-year-old company has outlasted some 60 competitors, surviving because it makes nearly all the parts for its mowers at its own iron foundry. The mowers are assembled in American Lawn Mower's 125-year-old red-brick factory in Shelbyville, Ind., and are sold under its own name and that of Great States, a rival it bought six decades ago. Push mowers have been around since Edwin Budding, an early 19th-century English inventor, took a device designed to trim the nap on carpets and adapted it to groom grass. But they hit their peak in the U.S. after World War II. When power mowers captured the market in the 1950s, American Lawn Mower's sales shrank to 84,000 mowers a year. These days, though, sales are booming. American Forecaster's Mr. Long, who owns two push mowers , says he used to attract stares from curious passersby when he mowed his lawn. "Now," he says, "nobody even notices. They've cracked the acceptability barrier." But not with everyone. "They're great exercise -- or punishment," says Michael MacCaskey, editor of National Gardening magazine. The flagship publication of the National Gardening Association, based in Burlington, Vt., calls push mowers an "excellent choice" for lawns under 1,000 square feet. Mr. MacCaskey says he gave up trying to push his hand-powered mower across what he calls his "funky, bumpy, Vermont lawn" several years ago. He does the job now with a gas-powered model. "Some lawns -- believe it or not -- have weeds, and push mowers don't cut them too neatly," Mr. MacCaskey says. "Power mowers compensate for a multitude of sins." American Lawn Mower says most of its customers buy push mowers because their lawns are too small for a power mower. About 65% of push-mower owners live on lots of a quarter-acre or less, the company says. Nearly half of them are women. Anne Lemon, who bought her push mower two years ago, recently spent about an hour cutting the grass around her house in Omaha, Neb. With the Midwest in the throes of a heat wave, Ms. Lemon was sweaty, but pleased. "I figure I could pay to go to a gym, or do this," she says. Pushing a mower reminds her of growing up, when her family owned a manual model. Her brother and her next-door neighbors also own push mowers . "It just seems more peaceful and quiet than a power mower," she says. Cleaner too. According to California's Air Resources Board, power mowers belch as much air pollution in half an hour as a new car does driving 172 miles. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the nation's 30 million power-mower users spill some 17 million gallons of gas each year just trying to fill their machines. That's enough to fill 26 Olympic-size swimming pools. A spokesman for the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, the trade group for the power-mower industry, acknowledges that gas-powered models pollute more than push mowers . But he says emissions have been cut by 35% since clean-air regulations were slapped on gas-powered models in 1990. In Portland, Ore., where 13% of the lawn mowers are push models, city environmental officials blame gas-powered mowers for about 8% of the city's summer smog. Push for Change, a Portland environmental group, drew about 80 enthusiasts for its annual push-mower "mow-in" this year. George Tylinski, a mechanical engineer who co-founded Push for Change three years ago, says push mowers are ideal in cities like Portland, where lawns are mostly small and flat. Mr. Tylinski says the hand-powered mowers are so common that a city bus driver barely blinked when he lugged his mower on board on his way to this year's mow- in. Some of the most avid push-mower enthusiasts are prison officials. Debbie Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of Corrections, says there has been some grumbling among the state's 65,000 prisoners since prison officials replaced gas-powered mowers with push-powered models in prisons last summer. "Some like the mowers, some don't," Ms. Buchanan says. "It's not like they have a choice." South Carolina's convicts have taken to calling their new push mowers "Beasleys," after Gov. David Beasley, who insisted on replacing the prison system's power models with them as part of a new get-tough policy for prisoners. A spokesman says the changeover should make lawn mowing "more meaningful" for the cons. The prisons' new attitude has been a windfall for American Lawn Mower. "We've sold thousands of mowers to prisons," the company's Mr. Hewitt says. "The government has finally figured a way to spend its money wisely."