Once I was obsessed by motorbikes. Now it is ride-on mowers. I am never certain whether this is a latent dominatrix tendency fed by transforming grass into the disciplined stripes of a well-tempered lawn or an escapist tendency served by avoiding people, telephones and e-mails as I roar about paddocks and gardens in the sunshine.

Either way, the obsession began about 15 years ago when I inherited a heavy, walk-behind, Briggs and Stratton cylinder-powered mower with a pull start that presented a serious challenge. The allure of this sturdy machine was its reliability and the deliciously clean stripes it created.

However, I left walk-behind mowers when I mounted my first ride-on, swift Wolf scooter, which is no longer available in this country. Today my dream is to own a massive £4,000 zero-turn mower with a mulching platform.

In the meantime, here is a highly partial list of ten mowers.

1. Briggs & Stratton celebrates its centenary this year and so I looked it up to find, to my horror, that the company I had always assumed to be English is in fact American. It began life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – although it now has a headquarters in Cheshire. And while I baulk at the thought of a North American company being responsible for some of our finest lawns, their lawn tips are as excellent as their engines, which can be found inside many top mowers.

2. John Deere’s walk-behind mowers have fan-assisted collection and, before you splutter that the action of the blades creates quite enough draft to waft cuttings into the collection area, the great advantage of this system is that it keeps collection going in damper conditions when other mowers give up. And we are going to need all the anti-damp help we can get this summer. John Deere’s latest addition is a machine with rear rollers for lawn obsessives (ie. anyone who wants that manicured striped look).

3. Wolf have been around for about 80 years and a late 20th-century offering was the scooter that triggered my ride-on interest. It was reliable, tough and easy to manoeuvre. It would slice through tussocky grass with the cutter platform held high and make a decent stripy lawn with the platform lowered. It was narrow enough to ease through the stone arches of my garden where few other ride-ons would fit.

Sadly, it is no longer available in this country. Enthusiasts have to go to mainland Europe to buy one. Wolf’s latest offering in this country is an electric walk-behind mower - a machine with a 40cm cutting width powered by a rechargeable battery - which costs around £699. I do not rate electric machinery for hedge cuttings, mowing, strimming or anything else which needs poke. However, Wolf makes such good tools it is probably worth considering.

4. Anyone who wants a slim ride-on mower like the Wolf but isn’t prepared to trek over to mainland Europe to get one should give Honda’s slim-line offerings a whirl. It’s 28in wide and costs £1,800.

5. Zero-turn machines are mowers which have deft, easeful manoeuvrability usually controlled by two joysticks rather than a wheel. They are familiar pieces of garden machinery in the States, less so here but this is changing thanks to a company called Snapper which has produced a range of zero turns fitted with Briggs & Stratton engines. This is my nirvana - riding above the comforting roar of the B&G and mowing, with the greatest of ease and speed, around the tightest spots, from tree trunks to statue plinths, leaving stripes of perfection in my wake.

Top dog is the .20hp 375Z Zero Turn with the patented Briggs & Stratton Ferris suspension, to heighten control and traction in the wet. It costs about £4, 500. You can buy a lesser zero-turn mower for around £2,000. In this country, Briggs and Stratton stock zero turns, as does Paskett PR.

6. The first mulching ride-on I tried was a Countax. The mulching system means that the grass is minced and shot back into the lawn rather than being collected. It makes for speedy mowing, no ‘what do we do with the grass clippings?’ angst and it helps lawns to survive period of low rain. The mower is comfortable and effective and costs £2, 995 – a snip, or rather a chop in this mulching context.

7. In 1964, Karl Dahlman revolutionised gardens by inventing the Flymo. Suddenly lawns were liberated from the stripes that marked out mum and dad’s garden. And lawns were liberated from the rectangle - cylinder mowers are difficult to use in anything other than rectangular shapes, whereas Flymos can cope with any shape. What’s more, they can be hung up when not in use, making it ideal for storage and for handling the UK’s ever-diminishing garden size. They cost around £80.

8. The Hayter RS82 Heritage is good quality ride-on for £1,749.

9. Second-hand ride-on mowers are worth looking at especially the high-quality brands.

10. Manual mowers cost from £40 to £150 and I say only this - buy one that is ready assembled unless you are very certain you can put things together without them falling apart. A few years ago I bought one from B&Q, screwed it all together, took it out for its first run and by the end of its second stripe it was in bits. I gave up trying to keep the long handles attached and instead mowed the lawn bent double by holding on to a ready-attached bar.

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