B4• Friday, September 17, 2021
THE GARDEN ISLAND
thegardenisland.com
Blowers, mowers and more
American yards quietly go electric Katherine Roth ASSOCIATED PRESS
For Jared Anderman, of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, switching from gasoline-powered tools to electric ones for lawn care was a nobrainer. “I’m concerned about climate change and wanted tools that are more ecofriendly, and also quieter. I like listening to music when I do yardwork and this way I can enjoy music or a podcast while I work,” he said. “I could never do that with gas-powered equipment.” The biggest advantage of all, he says, is maintenance. “Gas mowers are a pain. With electric tools, they boot right up and there’s really no maintenance at all. It’s just about keeping the batteries charged.” First, he bought an electric lawnmower. Then an electric string trimmer, hedge trimmer and leaf blower. “I don’t have an electric snowblower, yet. But when I do replace the gas snowblower, it’ll be with an electric one,” he says. There’s a quiet transformation going on in yards across the country. Longstanding complaints about the roar and fumes from gas-powered leaf blowers, mowers and other equipment have grown even louder as more people work
practices and their effect on the environment. Many gardeners and landscapers are moving away from “a hyper-managed standard of blow drying leaves,” for instance, in favor of “just letting leaves be leaves, with some of them staying on the ground,” says Daniel Mabe, founder of the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), which offers homes, businesses and organizations across the country a certification for low carbon-footprint landscaping. Letting more leaves, plant stalks and other garden debris cover garden beds during the winter helps the soil, and insects and other wildlife, experts say. Where power tools are needed, the shift from gas to MARLON CO/NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS electric is not unlike the trend toward electric cars. Tyler Campbell using an electric hedgetrimmer to trim hedges at the New York According to the CaliforBotanical Garden in the Bronx borough of New York. nia Air Resources Board, a department within the Califrom home because of the cent electric on hedge trimare now as good or better pandemic. mers and this year it’s 100 fornia Environmental Protecthan gas-guzzling versions, Meanwhile, the quality of percent. My guys won’t even cordless electric leaf blowers tion Agency, operating a gas zero- to low-emissions elecare still a challenge “because leaf blower for an hour can touch a gas hedge trimmer anymore,” says Morrell, who they require a lot of velocity create as much smog-formtric landscaping equipment has improved markedly, with oversees the trimming of the and power, and the weight of ing pollution as driving a the battery at this point is a garden’s 4,850 linear feet of battery packs that last lonToyota Camry 1,100 miles. lot heavier than gas.” hedges. The battery-powered lawn ger. But the technology is There are even autonoequipment sector is growing “Batteries have changed a evolving quickly, he says. at a rate three times faster lot in the past year alone, mous lawnmowers akin to and we are there in terms of the Roomba vacuum cleaner. “When I teach my landscap- than gas, according to the Freedonia Group, a division technology. Now it’s just a “They are really taking off, ing management students, of MarketResearch.com. matter of getting the word and in the next four or five who will go on to manage “In terms of residential out to professionals and con- years you’ll see more robotic large landscapes, I know adoption of electric landmowers in the private secthey will be using electric sumers,” says Kurt Morrell, equipment.” associate vice president for scaping equipment, at least tor,” says Morrell. The electric tools, and horticulture operations at here in California, it’s already Morrell, who also teaches the New York Botanical Gar- aspiring landscaping profes- some less-polluting gas opabout 50 percent,” Mabe says. den. sionals, says that while elec- tions, are just part of a reHe sees more resistance to “Last year we were 90 per- tric trimmers and mowers thinking of many lawn-care
electric equipment among professional landscaping companies than among residential consumers. But he estimates there are now at least 200 “all-electric” landscaping companies. Many of them make use of robotic technology, programming and maintaining the lawn equivalent of the Roomba. Andrew Bray, vice president of government relations for the Fairfax, Virginia-based, National Association of Professional Landscapers, says, “The transition to electric is inevitable, and most landscapers are trying out this equipment all the time. But while the technology is already there for homeowners -- and I myself use electric equipment at home — the technology isn’t there yet for most of the commercial sector.” “With leaf blowers, for example, they don’t yet have the battery power needed for commercial use,” he says. And he said there are cost and infrastructure hurdles for professional landscapers looking to switch from gas to electric. “Since battery packs are not interchangeable between brands of tools, you’d have to retrofit your whole shop so that everything is the same brand. You’d also probably have to upgrade the wattage of the electrical system in your shop, since an average crew would need about 36 batteries,” he says.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Average longterm mortgage rates dipped lower this week as economic prospects continued muted amid a wave of new delta variant coronavirus cases. They remained under 3%. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year mortgage edged down to 2.86% from 2.88% last week. That’s very close to where the benchmark rate stood at this time last year, 2.87%. It peaked this year at 3.18% in April. Home loan rates fell in the early summer and then remained steady despite increases in inflation. The rate for a 15-year loan, a popular option for homeowners refinancing their mortgages, fell to 2.12% from 2.19% last week. Anxiety abounds that the highly contagious delta variant could cause the economic recovery from the pandemic to stall by reducing employment and dampening consumer spending. Vaccine hesitancy has been cited by economists as a significant factor after the government reported this month that employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, far short of the million or so added in each of the previous two months. A new government report Thursday showed that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits moved up last week to 332,000 from a pandemic low, a sign that the spread of the delta variant may have slightly increased layoffs.
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