Machinery - Vintage Horticultural and Garden Machinery Club

When Mountfield Plugged In

August 30, 2025August 29, 2025 by Alan

A while ago, this blog looked at Vertex engines. These were two-stroke engines which made their way onto Mountfield mowers in the mid-1970s. It was not a success. Around the same time, Mountfield experimented with adding electric motors to their… Continue Reading

Mowers and Bicycles

February 16, 2025February 16, 2025 by Alan

It is often overlooked, but many of the manufacturers of vintage horticultural machinery were also involved in manufacturing an array of other items. Just because we know them for horticultural items doesn’t mean they didn’t have interests (or beginnings) in… Continue Reading

Vertex Engine

August 27, 2024August 26, 2024 by Alan

Earlier this year there was a discussion on the forum about how many different manufacturers (or brands) had produced engines that were fitted to horticultural machines. The list became long and would have been longer if I hadn’t stopped adding… Continue Reading

The Invention of the Nylon Line Strimmer.

July 24, 2024July 22, 2024 by Alan

Let’s see a show of hands for everyone who has owned or used a domestic garden strimmer. This tool has become essential in many gardens, selling in large quantities over the years. But just how long has the garden strimmer,… Continue Reading

Quiz: Guess the company…#2

May 24, 2024 by Alan

This is the second in a series of ‘Guess the company’ quizzes. From the following eight clues can you work out which single company they refer to? The answer is at the bottom of the page. The first quiz can… Continue Reading

Lawn Fertiliser Spreaders

March 27, 2024March 25, 2024 by Alan

You may be wondering why there’s a picture of a stuffed green frog in this article, but more about that later… I’ve concluded that nearly every garden, certainly those with a lawn, will have felt the presence of a garden… Continue Reading

Battery Power! Is it the future…again?

August 21, 2023August 11, 2023 by Alan

Battery-powered machinery has been hanging about in the horticultural machinery world for several decades. Probably the best-known machines with batteries as their means of power are lawn mowers, for instance, in the vintage arena are cylinder mower models such as… Continue Reading

Kubota Premises – Then & Now

July 16, 2023 by Alan

Recently I have been looking at the history of Kubota tractors in the UK. Although the tractors were sold in many countries in the 1960s, the first Kubota tractors didn’t arrive in the UK until the early 1970s, and the… Continue Reading

The Perils of Collecting…..

November 25, 2020November 22, 2020 by Alan

We are possibly all guilty of wasting time looking through classified adverts in the tractor or vintage magazines or browsing online auctions, this is usually done under the guise of ‘research purposes’ even if we sometimes just accidentally end up… Continue Reading

Engine Replacement Guide

October 25, 2020 by Alan

Sometimes it’s necessary to change the engine on a machine, usually this is because the existing one, often the original, has come to the end of it’s life and parts are no longer available or it’s just not cost effective.… Continue Reading