what amazes me about them, is how close to the ground they'll cut and that they are like a blinder and pulverize everything......
looks great....your trees are a few years older than mine, but i'm going to prune them up to where you can walk and cut under them......like a little park with a canopy......
Yes, they are much much better at mulching than rotary cutters or most finish mowers and they mulch both sticks and grass.
Being shorter, they are also much more manuverable than other rear mounted mowers which comes in handy in an overgrown area like the one pictured in this thread.
This is the third time I have been through this spot. The first time was to clear out the honeysuckle, it was about 6-8' high and I cut it all with a chainsaw moved by hand and burned it(no tractor). Next year took out about 30-40 trees (no tractor). This time with the tractor and flail mower much better . I like how the fm makes everything disappear. I am going for the park setting also, and now I feel like I am to the managing stage, the biggest battle is over, with this part
I know the feeling. I started to clear about 4 acres with a Craftsman riding mower then graduated to a walk behind sickle mower then a DR Brush Mower then a 21hp tractor with bush hog then added a grapple which finally did the job. I then got recruited to clear another 10-15 acres so then moved up to a 40hp tractor, big loader, grapple and flail. Wish I'd started with my current set up but if I had I wouldn't have half as many war stories.
Great pics and a really nice job of cleaning up the property. I've gone the way of some of the rest of you, chain saw, walk behind mower (DR), had enough of that. I think I'll get one of the Caroni flails.
My property is about as brushy as yours, but quite a bit hillier and rockier, which will make things more painful...but still much better than the walk-behind. I'm getting too old for that s..tuff.
Brush clearing with the Caroni. It may not be obvious but the bald patches in front of the brush in these photos used to be similar brush to what is in the background. One backwards pass plus then pulling the flail back out forwards is basically all it takes to get this type of clearing with these medium size bushes. None of these were more than an inch or inch and a half in diameter but all of the bushes had multiple stalks. A few small pieces will be left behind but almost all of it is mulched into pretty fine material. The last photo shows what you get if you run over the area a couple of times with the flail set in a low position.