Mowing is an important process for maintaining a healthy, attractive grass lawn. A good lawn mower with sharp blades that’s regularly maintained, along with good mowing techniques all help to create a smooth, uniform, well-groomed appearance for your lawn. Believe it or not, but a a lawn’s density, vigor, water consumption, weed vulnerability, and resistance to outside stresses are all influenced by how you mow. Below are 8 useful lawn mowing tips and techniques to adopt to your lawn care program today.
1. Mow you grass on a regular basis. Doing so will train your grass to grow horizontally making your lawn thicker and choking out unwanted weeds. Mowing frequently also keeps your grass clippings short and if you mow often enough, you don’t have to catch and remove your clippings. A small amount of grass clippings can be beneficial to your lawn because they filter down to the soil providing a source of grass fertilizer after they decompose. Larger clippings will build up over time causing a layer of thatch which will have to be removed using a de-thatching machine.
2. Cutting your grass uniformly is the key to a nice looking lawn, not necessarily trying to mow your grass as short as possible. Maintain Uniformity.
3. Keep the mower blades as sharp as possible. Dull blades rip and shred the grass blades leaving openings for diseases and simply doesn’t look nice.
4. Do not cut off more than one-third of the grass blade during any single mowing. Cutting off more than one third will scalp your grass removing the green material that absorbs sunlight and produces energy for growth. A scalped lawn doesn’t look good and it takes time for your grass to recover to a healthy condition.
5. Mow your grass as high as recommended for your grass type. Maintaing the grass blades tall above ground promotes deep root growth below ground. A lawn with a deep rooting system can soak up more water and nutrients and is much more tolerant against the stresses of hot weather and drought.
6. Mow your lawn in a different direction every time. When mowing in the same direction every time, grass tends to lean over in same direction making it difficult to mow uniformly. To achieve a uniform cut, overlap cut line by 2 to 4 inches.
7. Do not mow wet grass. Mowing a damp lawn can actually pull grass plants out of the soil and there’s also a greater risk of compacting your soil by trafficking over wet ground. Having said that, during rainy weather, its better to mow your grass wet than to wait for better conditions letting it get too long. Scalping your grass is much more damaging.
8. If you happen to miss a mow and your grass gets too long, mow your lawn twice. The first pass you cut one-half the amount and on the second pass you cut down to the desired height. This technique will reduce overtaxing your mower engine and its less traumatic on your grass.
This list of Lawn Mower Tips should help you improve or maintain your beautiful, green, dense, vigorous grass lawn. For more lawn care tips specific to your state, check out the Planting Grass Seed Center Home Page.