Grass Cutting Height

Grass Cutting Height

There are many ways to make this summer your outdoor properties look great like your lawn. It takes a lot of time and energy to maintain a lawn and landscape but there are few cultural practices that are necessary to keep your lawn looking great in the summer.

Proper mowing is among the very first cultural practices. It might seem like an easy task, just take your mower out of the shed and go to your lawn place. There’s a little more to it than that, like understanding the best mowing height for the lawn. Below we’ll go through a few best practices of mowing.

Grass Mowing Height Proper grass mowing height and sufficient frequency are important to your lawn health. The best mowing height of grass in our area is about 3-3 1⁄2 inches long. Mow away just 1/3 of the grass plant at a time while mowing the lawn. We suggest mowing frequency should depend on how tall the grass is, and not necessarily on a timetable. If a lawn is held at 3 inches in height, for example, it should be mowed when the grass exceeds 4 1⁄2 inches, not every other Wednesday. By extracting too much of the grass blade at one time, it can weaken the plant, which in turn would reduce its ability to withstand other environmental problems such as disease, surface feeding insects and even widespread weed invasions.

Also, be careful not to cut the grass too short or weedwack too close to the edges. This is generally called scalping. Scalping is when, at one point, too much of the grass blade is mowed off and the plants ‘ stem and crown are left exposed. Scalping a lawn can cause injury to the plant whether it is from mowing too short or uneven ground. Higher raising of the mower blades can help to reduce this issue and better watering helps in the recovery of scalped areas. Seeding is sometimes required to restore permanently damaged areas of the scalp.

When determining the right mowing height for grass, keeping the grass tall is safest. Holding it tall would shade the soil under the canopy of the turf and keep the soil cooler. That will help to reduce the number of growing weeds.

Mowing Blades You may have been mowing this season already, but make sure you constantly sharpen the mower blades and perform regular maintenance on your mower as you regularly change the oil and spark plugs. Dull mower blades will tear the grass blade, bruise and shred it, causing damage to the turf. The grass plant can be damaged, and an open wound on grass blades are excellent spots for illness.

Many best practices We also recommend that you should not mow your lawn while the grass is damp. Dew or any kind of unnecessary moisture on the blades of grass is an excellent way to spread lawn disease. Also, stop the midday mowing in the day’s full heat because it can put extra stress on the plant. Mow in the morning cool after evaporation of the dew, or in the evening.

Often try to switch the way you usually mow when mowing the lawn. Mowing the lawn in the same direction would cause the grass to lean in that direction every time. Mowing in different directions will make the grass grow uprighter every time you cut the lawn.

Do not bag your grass clippings since it is better for the lawn to leave the clippings behind. This is a “grass-cycling” cycle The benefits of this process are that it brings back moisture and nutrients into the lawn. Contrary to common belief, that doesn’t help build up thatch. Bagging or extracting clippings is sometimes necessary. Those should be discarded if the clippings are too numerous or too long and clump up. The grass underneath will suffocate if left in clumps and die off.

Please check out our: Landscaping Curb Appeal page