Charles, I was out mowing the slopes at my pond with a zero turn Ferris 1500 today. I have made up
my mind. I am going to pay someone to bring a backhoe out to make the slopes easier to deal with.
When i built my pond i thought it was ok for the mower. But that was with my backside sitting in a cat d3 not the mower, big difference. I should have lowered the slopes sooner but i didnt. It will be easier to make a permanant soloution to the lay of the land than buying a special mower. With the hyd steering of the zero turn mower its not possible to "feel" the tires starting to slip, so
i cannot stop it in time if it spins. My recomendation is to make less of a slope before you sod or lay grass. It will be the best decision, i feel.
I agree with your recommendation to ease the slope now rather than waste effort on sodding or laying grass on a difficult-to-mow area. We're already experiencing here that the zero-turn mowers are just too finnicky to mow slopes. We'll get the dozer out eventually to fix our predecessor's mistake but until then I'll probably resort to push mowing and string trimming. I like the speed and agility of zero-turns but there are times we've run off into the pond far too easily. Fortunately the ATV is handy to winch it out!
