Lawn mowing sounds like a simple enough thing. You just fuel up the mower, yank the cord, walk or journey around in rectangles for awhile, and the deed is done. Oh, but the lawn connoisseur understands there’s a lot more to it compared to that. How you mow, when you mow and even what you do with the clippings can make a huge difference in how your lawn functions.
Here are some tips on how to mow your lawn.
In fact, mowing the lawn is probably the most unappreciated and overlooked part of good lawn care.
It starts with lawn height
The biggest mowing miscue the standard homeowner makes is slicing grass too short. Some people downright scalp the lawn, while using putting-green look as the ideal design. That’s a bad idea culturally for a number of reasons:
It increases moisture as well as nutrition demands as the lawn tries to fight back from close to total decapitation.
It reduces the amount of chlorophyll open to manufacture energy to fuel the grass roots. (Lengthier blades mean more chlorophyll for every grass plant and consequently more vigorous grass.)
It allows the soil to dry up faster, which increases the ill effects of drought.
And, weed growth germinate better and get off to a faster start when taller grass blades aren’t shade providing them out.
What actually makes a mown lawn look good is the evenness of the cut — not its height. Most people are just as happy with a 3-inch-tall evenly cut garden as a 1-inch-tall evenly cut yard.
A bad cut can dry out your lawn and market weed growth
The theory that slicing short lengthens the time in between cuts also doesn’t last. Grass actually grows faster after it’s been cut brief as it tries to rebuild by itself to its genetic norm.
A great in-season height for most turfgrasses is 2½ to 3 inches — typically the highest establishing on mowers. The exclusion is toward the end of the season when it makes sense to cut a little shorter so the grass rotor blades will dry faster over winter. That can help head off early-spring fungus problems such as snow mildew.
Don’t wait too long among grass cuts
A second essential issue is when to get out the particular mower. A good rule of thumb is to mow the lawn usually enough so you’re in no way removing more than one-third of the edge length at a time.
Mowing is really pruning. And that’s a form of problems for the grass plants. Severe cutbacks are much more nerve-racking on grass than lighter in weight cuts and require much more energy to heal.
Any time grass is growing fastest in mid-spring, this may mean mowing twice a week or every 4 or 5 days. It’s much better to cut that often than to wait other days and end up having to whack 3 inches away from a 6-inch stand. That’s not just a shock to the grass however creates an unusually huge mass of clippings.
As well as what about the grass cuttings?
Big piles of clippings are bad news because they can’t be left on the lawn. They will mat down the living lawn blades and shut off the sun’s rays, which will yellow the grass and encourage diseases. Clippings that can be seen even in little piles should be raked up and preferably composted or used as a mulch over garden bedrooms.
Clippings can provide one-third of your lawn’s Nitrogen wants
If you’re mowing regularly, clippings won’t be a problem. They’ll be quick enough to disappear into the lawn. It’s actually best to let the extras drop into the lawn as opposed to bagging them. Why?
They return precious nutrients to the yard soil as they break down. Turfgrass researchers at Penn State University estimate that letting the clippings decay in place supply about one-third of the lawn’s total nitrogen needs for that season.
The decaying extras add organic matter to the soil.
Clippings are not a significant cause of thatch in the lawn, as is often believed. Thatch is that coating of dead roots, crowns and other decomposing matter that will impede rainfall and oxygen exchange when it’s too thick (i.e. more than a great inch). In a healthy yard, microbes quickly break down little grass clippings.
Returning the cuttings to the ground is recycling from its best and maintains organic “waste” out of the trash stream.
Mulching mowers do an excellent career of chopping the cuttings into small pieces. Also ordinary side-discharge mowers disperse cuttings well enough to let them lie when you mow at regular enough intervals.
If you get behind, at least try to work around the particular perimeter of the yard, capturing the clips inward thus you’ll end up having to house ” rake ” only one or two channels in the middle. Should you go back and forth — shooting first right and then to the left — you’ll end up with a channel of clippings every two passes.
Avoid slicing the grass when it’s damp. The clippings are more likely to pad together then, you won’t receive an even cut (the lawnmower wheels will flatten lawn blades), and you may even compact the soil if it’s wet.
Also don’t attempt to trim when grass is going dark brown and dormant in a drought – even if you’re mainly doing the work because weeds are continuous to grow and are poking upward. Grass crowns become breakable and fragile in drought conditions, and if you break them with your feet and lawn mower wheels, the plants won’t recover when rains return. Dead crowns equal deceased grass.
Of lawn mower rotor blades and models…
Some people swear by their own reel mowers — the ones with the old-fashioned bladed drums that go around and also snip off grass blades like scissors. These perform great, but so do turning mowers when they’re kept in good condition.
No matter which style of mower you have, the most important thing you can do is keep the blades sharp. Nice, sharp lawn mower blades make a clean cut. Dull blades rip the actual heads off grass blades and cause ragged ends.
First, that’s a cosmetic problem because rough, ragged reductions make bigger openings in which turn brown and be noticeable more than sharp cuts. But even worse, those bigger openings cause the grass to lose a lot more moisture, which increases drought stress in hot weather. And bigger openings leave grass blades more vulnerable to disease spores.
Sharpening your lawn mower blades when every few years is not enough. Two or three times during the growing months are a better game plan, and even honing once every 25 several hours is not overkill. Some homeowners personal two different lawn mower blades so they always have one for your mower while the other is being sharpened.
Habits and mowing and trimming patterns
Finally, there’s the issue of the course you take as you cut. Many homeowners take the exact same course every time because it makes sense in their mind for one reason or another (comfort, habit, avoiding the nosy next door neighbor, etc.) There’s no horticultural problem with that, but altering the path can make a cosmetic difference.
Look closely and you’ll notice that the color of the grass appears different based on which way you approved over it with the mower. That’s because the force of the rotating mower blades blows the turf blades as it cuts them. Light reflecting off the turf will make it look light or darker, depending on that way the blades are laying.
It’s this pattern of mowing that is the reason the designs commonly noticed in athletic fields. Some actually avid home-
lawn fans perform the same thing themselves, and there tend to be even special mower blades created for creating patterns.
Varying your route can make a slight distinction in the evenness of the cut by looking into making sure no particular locations keep getting pushed straight down while others are always cut off.
Garden mowing might not be rocket science, but it isn’t exactly foolproof both. Just remember these few important rules, and you’ll be master of the mower: Mow high and quite often. Let those clips lie. And keep those lawn mower cutting blades sharp!