Laiskus on mõnes mõttes üks väga hea asi. Tahad suht hooldusvaba aeda ja siis pead kord-kaks nädalas oma 3000 m2 masinaga üle käima. Keeruliseks teeb veel asja üks agar naine, kes on murusse istutanud mingeid tutikuid, mille ümber tuleb niidukiga keerutada. Ega ma neid muidugi päris suvalistesse kohtadesse istutanud pole, mul ikka oma nägemus kah, tutikutest saavad aegamööda alguse istututusalad, aga teen nagu töö ja laiskuse kõrvalt jõuan ja parasjagu tuju on. Tujudest niipalju, et tuleb tuju randa sõita, aga siis vajab muru just täna niitmist, sest järgmised päevad on vihmased. Just see saigi viimaseks tõukeks, miks ostsime 2015. aastal robotniiduki Honda Miimo 520. Täpsemalt saab temast lugeda SIIT.

Robotniidukitest on saanud tänaseks nii igapäevased asjad, et siin nagu polekski millestki niiväga rääkida. Teen selle postituse aga selleks, et jagada kogemusi, mis meile endale meeldiva üllatusena tulid.

Esimese paari aastaga ei juhtunud väga midagi. Muru oli pidevalt ilus ja niidetud, jäi ära pidev bensiini ostmine. Miimo pidavat võtma suveperioodiga elektrit kommikoti hinna jagu. Nüüd küll ilmselt juba kahe kommikoti jagu, aga seda me pole oma elektriarvel siiamaani tähele pannud, järelikult ikka vähe. Igal kevadel peale niiduki töölesaatmist käime siiani esimese pool tundi oma koduloomal armunud näoga järel: mõtle, kui tubli ja tarmukas loom, mis vaeva ta meilt kõik ära võtab. Ei huvita teda vihm ega midagi, muudkui niidab.

Esimene asi, mis meil peale paari esimest suve mingil hetkel silma jäi, oli see, et sammal oli kuhugi kadunud. Mitte et mul sambla vastu midagi oleks, vastupidi: jala all mõnus pehme ja ikka vähem vaja muru niita. Tegelikult on asi lihtne: sammal ei talu 24/7 peal trampimist, pealegi on niiduki rattad kärnilised nagu roomikud ja keerutavad sammalt ilmselt vaikselt üles ka.

Siis tuli 2018 kuum põuane suvi, muru kõrbes nii ära, et polnudki midagi niita. Tagantjärele vanu pilte vaadates tuleb aga üllatusena see, et lilled niiväga tol aastal ei kõrbenudki, kui muidugi vanad hostad välja arvata.

In some ways, laziness is a very good thing. You want a fairly maintenance-free garden, and then you have to go over your 3000 m2 with a machine once or twice a week. The matter is further complicated by a diligent woman who has planted somekind tassels in the lawn, around which the lawnmower has to spin. Of course, I haven’t planted them in completely arbitrary places, I still have my own vision, over time from tassels are formed planting areas, but I do as I can aside from work and laziness and what’s my mood at the moment. So much for moods: the mood will come to go to the beach, but then the lawn needs to be mowed today, because the next few days will be rainy. This was the final push for us to buy the Honda Miimo 520 robotic lawnmower in 2015. You can read more about him HERE.

Robotic lawnmowers have become such everyday things today that there is nothing to talk about here. However, I am making this post to share experiences that came as a pleasant surprise to us.
Nothing much happened in the first couple of years. The lawn was always beautiful and mowed, and the constant purchase of gasoline was cancelled. Miimo has to charge the price of a bag of candy for electricity during the summer period. Now it’s probably already for two bags of candy, but we haven’t noticed it on our electricity bill so far, so it’s still little. Every spring, after sending the mower to work, we still follow our domestic animal for the first half hour with a face in love: think how good and matter-of-fact this animal is, how much it takes the trouble out of us. He doesn’t care about the rain or anything, he just keeps mowing.
The first thing we noticed at some point after the first couple of summers was that the moss had disappeared somewhere. Not that I have anything against moss, on the contrary: nice soft underfoot and less need to mow the lawn. In fact, it’s simple: the moss can’t stand being trampled on 24/7, besides, the wheels of the mower have a large pattern and probably spin up the moss quietly as well.
Then came the hot, dry summer of 2018, the grass was so burnt that there was nothing to mow. Looking back at old pictures, however, it comes as a surprise that the flowers didn’t burn that year, except for the old hostas, of course.

Peale 2018 oli vahepeal paar normaalsemat suve, siis tulid jälle 2021 ja 2022 kuivad-kuumad suved. Ja mis meie avastasime? Lilled kippusid kuivama ja isegi õunapuud vajasid kastmist, aga mitte muru! Robotniiduk ju tegelikult pidevalt multshib muru ja nüüd on siis aastatega tekkinud mullapinnale pidevalt uuenev kiht, mis hoiab korralikult niiskust ja annab taimedele väetist, et paremini põuale vastu pidada. Ja muidugi on muru nende aastatega pideva niitmise käigus tunduvalt tihedamaks muutunud, sest meie murus on palju varrejuppidega levivaid taimi. Tänu sellele on tunduvalt vähemaks jäänud ka võililli, sest neil pole lihtsalt kuhugi maanduda.

After 2018, there were a few more normal summers in the meantime, then the dry-hot summers of 2021 and 2022 came again. And what did we discover? The flowers tended to dry up and even the apple trees needed watering, but not the grass! The robotic lawnmower is actually constantly mulching the grass, and now, over the years, a constantly renewing layer has formed on the soil surface, which properly retains moisture and provides fertilizer to the plants to better withstand drought. And of course, the lawn has become much denser over the years with constant mowing, because we have a lot of plants that spread by stem cuttings in our lawn. Thanks to this, there have also been considerably fewer dandelions, because they simply have nowhere to land.

Viimasel pildil on näha suurest kuivast pruuniks tõmbunud torkava kuuse noored võrsed. Floksil on alumised lehed ammu kuivanud, täpiline iminõges ja kollane päevaliilia on kahtlaselt pruunikirjud, aga murul pole häda midagi.

In the last picture you can see shriveled from large dry to brown the young shoots spruce. The lower leaves of the phlox have long since dried up, the Spotted Dead Nettle and the yellow day lily are suspiciously brown, but the grass is fine.

Selliseid “viljaringe” teeb Honda Miimo siis, kui tema arust on muru liiga paks ja vajab korralikku töötlemist. Niipalju siis seekordsest kuivast suvest…

Honda Miimo makes such “crop circles” when it thinks the grass is too thick and this needs proper processing. So much for this dry summer…

Mis siis veel meie kodulooma kohta öelda? Igatahes on ta väga sõbralik tegelane. Naabrikassid küll suhtusid temasse algul väga umbusklikult: kord jälgisin pool tundi, kuidas kass käis, küür seljas ja karv turris, teisel pool aeda edasi-tagasi ja vahtis umbuskliku näoga roboti töötamist. Aga linnud on temaga väga harjunud. Juhtusin nägema, kuidas kari kuldnokki otsis rohu seest toitu ja ei teinud Miimo lähenemisest väljagi. See aga sõitis otse nende suunas ja lõpuks ühele peaaegu saba alla kinni. Toksu pihta saanud lind hüppas kümme sentimeetrit eemale, vahtis veidi aega solvunud näoga, et miks teda segatakse ja siis otsis rahumeeli toitu edasi. Ei mingit põgenemist, toimetasid rahus parves edasi.

Ja muidugi aitab Miimo pügada vajadusel põõsaste alumisi oksi ja uhkeldab ka veel sellega.

So what else can be said about our pet? Anyway, he is a very friendly character. Neighbor’s cats were very distrustful of him at first: once I watched for half an hour how the cat walked, with a hump on its back and fur standing up, back and forth on the other side of the garden and stared at the work of the robot with a disbelieving face. But the birds are very used to him. I happened to see a flock of starlings looking for food in the grass and didn’t budge from Miimo’s approach. However, it drove straight towards them and finally almost ran into the tail of one. The bird that was hit jumped ten centimeters away, stared for a while with an offended face, wondering why it was being disturbed, and then calmly continued looking for food. No escape of any kind, they carried on calmly in a raft.

And of course, Miimo helps to trim the lower branches of the bushes if necessary and is also boasts about it yet.

Tehnilise külje pealt on tal selle kaheksa aasta jooksul paar korda olnud vaja vahetada kõhualust plastmassi, sest kõik mis liigub, see kulub. Mingit nipet-näpet aeg-ajalt veel. Selle suve alguses vahetasime igaks juhuks välja ka ka aku, sest Miimo hakkas liiga tihti laadimas käima ja sellest tulenevalt jäi töö lohakaks. Tavalisi muruniidukeid olime sunnitud iga kolme-nelja aasta tagant vahetama, sest polnud enam väga midagi parandada. Et siis ikka üks väga tubli loom.

On the technical side, he has had to change the plastic under his stomach a few times during these eight years, because everything that moves wears out. Something smaller from time to time yet. At the beginning of this summer, we also replaced the battery just in case, because Miimo started charging too often and as a result the work was sloppy. We were forced to change ordinary lawnmowers every three or four years, because there was not much left to repair. Still a one very good domestic animal.