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P
roper mowing is one of the most important practices
in keeping your lawn healthy. Grasses are like most
plants — if you clip off the growing points (for grass,
it’s in the crown, where the new leaves develop), the plants
branch out and become denser, which in this case, turns
thousands of individual grass plants into a tightly woven
turf or a lawn. If you didn’t mow at all, your yard would look
more like a prairie than a lawn. But the mere act of mowing
isn’t what makes a lawn look good. Mowing height and
mowing frequency determine how healthy and attractive
your lawn looks. After all, cutting a lawn is stressful for the
grass. The leaves make the food for the roots — and how
would you like it if someone kept cutting off your food?
Height does count
Most grasses have a range of recommended mowing
heights. Stay at the upper end of that range when the
lawn is under stressful conditions, such as hot weather or
drought, or if you have a shady lawn. In cooler weather,
you can cut the grass a little lower.
Follow the one-third rule.
For a thriving lawn, never cut
away more than one-third of the grass blade in any one
mowing. If the grass “gets ahead of you” because of wet
weather or your busy schedule, move up the cutting height
of your mower to the highest possible setting and mow.
If clippings are too long and heavy, even at that cutting
Mowing Your Lawn
the Right Way
height, catch them with the bagging unit or clean up after
mowing with a leaf rake. Then move the cutting height back
to your normal range and cut the lawn again a few days
after that first mowing.
Edging and trimming are the finishing touches of mowing,
kind of like getting a shave after you’ve had a haircut.
Edging and trimming are pretty close to being the same
thing. Some tools are called edgers because they’re
designed to trim the lawn along a hard surface like a
driveway or sidewalk. Edgers cut a nice clean edge, but
leave some dirt and grass debris that you need to clean
up. On the other hand, you can use trimmers anywhere —
along a hard surface, in tight spaces, next to planting beds,
and so on. Trimmers also leave some clippings on paths
and driveways that you need to sweep up.
Avoid placing grass clippings in a plastic bag and sending
them off to the dump. Grass clippings are valuable organic
matter, chock-full of nitrogen and other nutrients. As long
as you mow often enough to remove no more than one
third of the grass blade, the easiest thing to do is just to
leave clippings on the lawn. The pieces break down quickly
and reduce the amount of fertilizer you have to use by as
much as 25 percent. And research has proven that the
clippings don’t cause thatch to build up.
