Buying Advice Garden Gate Width - Should I care?

I am thinking of starting-up a small landscaping service. While asking around about mowers someone suggested I get a mower w/a width of less than 36" so it can fit through your typical residential gate. That seemingly limits my options, quite significantly. The gates on my home are 48".

What is your opinion? What is the typical gate width? How do landscapers handle this problem now?

Thanks.

-Brian Myers on Long Island

Most of the gates in our area are 36". We normally run a 42" Walker so instead of push mowing the fenced in area we ask if the customer would be will to install a 48" gate for the cost of materials. We have had only 3 or 4 refuse and when they do we price the mowing at a higher rate for the reason of having to push mow.

Most single gates are 48 or 36. One property has a HUGE backyard with a single 48 gate. My choices are a 60" ZTR or a 34" Stand on. takes FOREVER to mow that backyard with the 34"
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Gus has the best answer.
36" is a standard side gate down here.
I have several customers who mow residentials and they all use Greenfields 32" or 34" Fastcut mowers.
You said you were setting up a landscaping business so the extra time mowing should not present a big problem unless you are doing more mowing than landscaping.

As for taking all day, it depends upon how you mow & how hard you want to work.
Dave typically does 20 - 30 yards a day with his Greenfields 34 and that mower has a fixed axel, no diff.
Faster mowing is all about using your head and being proficient with the equipment you have.
I see a lot of lawn contractors with absolutely no idea of how to mow a lawn, working at a pace so slow they are just about standing still.

If you are thinking about landscaping with follow up garden care then make sure you design the gardens to facilitate quick & easy maintenance.
I do mobile repairs and see so many gardens that could not have been more labour intensive to maintain if they were designed by a Government committee.

The same contractors all use anchient HRU21 walk behinds and I am forever replacing worn out 3rd gears and rear wheels.
They fit them with 4 high life blades so the mower packs a lot more grass in the catcher.
A walk from the back yard to the trailer to dump a catcher of grass takes the same time as mowing 1/4 of the yard.

They also us multiple catchers for the same reason in big yards.

After that, a trailer / truck designed for very quick equipment removal will save a massive amount of time.
I have seen 2 contractors working almost side by side and a single man crew had his front edges done , and front lawn nearly finished by the time the 2 man crew opposite had pulled the ride on out, to get to the push mower & edger.

You should buy a mower that will suit your needs. A 36” cut mower is actually wider with the deck and will not fit through a 36” gate. I have a Toro Z334 with a 34” cut and mulching deck which fits though 36” gates with about ½ inch to spare each side. This in itself is a time saver as you do not have to use a walk behind mower for back yards. Realistically you can easily cut 1200 square yards (1000 sqm) in 20 minutes with this type of mower.

Most of our gates in older neighborhoods are 36 newer developments putting on bigger gates I carry around a 36 inch walker so I can squeeze through most of our gates I did purchase a 32 inch scag walk behind for this season I think it going to be quicker in some of our situations

It really depends on your area and how many yards are fenced whether it's even worth dealing with gated yards. Fences aren't very common where I am and it's not an issue on any of my current accounts: the smallest mower I use is a 48 inch walk-behind and the smallest mower you will see on many trailers is a 60 inch Z. But I have had to deal with narrow gates in the past. For wood stockade and picket fences it's usually pretty easy to modify them so that you can just remove a panel and set it aside and bypass the gate entirely. Even for a chain link fence it's often not that big of a deal to disconnect the fence at one of the gate posts with common hand tools...the gate isn't always the only way in.