Must-Have Protective Clothing for Lawn Care

Well-manicured lawns add to the beauty of a compound. This comes at a heavy cost of constant care. These include frequent lawn mowing, trimming hedges, raking and watering. It is undeniable that these activities are simple but come with the risk of injury. Incorrect use of lawn mowers, for instance, accounts for many of the injuries associated with mowing.

You must ensure that you don’t injure or harm yourself while working. Apart from the correct use of tools and equipment, protective clothing for lawn care offers the first line of protection against these accidents. There are several must-have gears which guarantee your safety while taking care of your lawn.

Loan mowers come as either stand-behind or ride-on variants. Both have sharp blades that use the cutting action to trim your lawn. This poses a risk to any operator. It is therefore important to have protective gear with you when mowing. The following are some of the landscaping safety gear that you can use.

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Goggles/Facemask/Dust mask

When mowing, the blades of the mower often cut grass at high velocity throwing them in the air. There are several, pebbles, stones or sticks which may fly as a result to your face, not to mention the grass.

Safety glasses or goggles offer adequate protection to your eyes. However, they both limit their protection to the eyes leaving the rest of the face unattended. Face masks offer relative complete coverage of the face from flying debris.

Dust masks and Respirators

Inhaling dust or fine sand particles can cause respiratory complications and allergic reactions. This is especially true when mowing grass growing in loose fine soils. Dusk masks are recommended when working in areas of sandy soil or during dry and windy conditions due to the high likelihood of these materials being inhaled. Alternatively, you can use a respirator to ensure your nose is protected from fine debris in the air. Masks and respirators are the mandatory protective clothing for mowing grass if you are asthmatic or allergic to freshly cut grass. Here are some masks you can try out.

Closed Shoes

You will be in constant motion when mowing or power raking your lawn. Protecting your feet becomes a priority due to the hazards associated with the lawn surface and the working mower. Sticks and stones are some of the objects that may end up injuring your uncovered feet. Non-laced shoes are often recommended due to the low risk of entanglement with equipment, hedges or surface objects while working. Normally a sturdy, closed toe and non-slip shoes are recommended for the task.

Ear Muffs/Earplugs

Given the noisy nature of virtually all gasoline-powered lawn mowers, it is important to take care of your eardrums. Most people assume the harmful effects of this noise. A typical gasoline mower produces over 90DB of noise in operation. This is above the approved medical threshold which experts advise people to wear hearing protection. Earplugs offer adequate protection by reducing the amount of noise getting into your ear.

You can check out this protective earmuff guide we recently did to find out which ear protection best suits your purpose.

Gloves

You hand constantly risks being cut or blistered when working on your lawn. Investing in a pair of gloves goes a long way in ensuring your hands don’t get hurt. They offer a shield between your hand and other outside elements. Blistering often occurs especially when your hands are not gloved or when using stand-behind mowers which require constant change of direction, machine vibrations push and pull.

Gloves have the additional benefit of improving grip on other tools that would otherwise slip when using bare hands. Check out our guide on clawed gardening gloves or elbow length gardening gloves to find out which work best for your gardening style.

An Overall

Invest in an overall. It offers adequate protection of your clothes against dirt in addition to the primary role of protecting your body from scratches and abrasions from rough hedges. An overall allows you to move in thick vegetation and hedges without getting cuts and bruises from the pants.

There you have it. These are the few types of PPE for mowing grass you need to invest in guarantee your safety while taking care of your lawn. Most people can make do with the bare minimum but asthmatics or people with allergies, the elderly and pregnant gardening women should aspire to done full protective gear.