Did you know that mowing your lawn can actually damage it?
To keep your garden looking neat, mowing your lawn is essential. It’s one of the most frequent jobs you do in your backyard, and it’s a must for keeping your grass healthy.
But if you’re not doing it properly, you might be doing more harm than good to your lawn.
If you’re not sure how to cut the grass to keep it healthy, check out our lawn mowing tips for help.
Table of Contents
1. Reduce Grass Height by One Third
If you’re wondering how often to mow your lawn, wait until it’s about a third over the height you want it. Cutting a third off is the ideal amount to keep your grass healthy. If you cut off more, this could stress out the grass and lead to some issues with your lawn.
Remember too that your grass will grow at different rates depending on the time of year. When it might take a week to grow by a third in summer, it’s likely to be much slower in winter!
2. Leave Some Length
If you’re looking for lawn mowing tips to enhance the health of your lawn, never cut too much off. Whilst short grass might look great now, it’s going to leave you with problems in the long-term.
This is because the blades you grow are producing food through photosynthesis. If the blades are too short, the grass won’t be able to produce enough nutrients for itself and could end up dying.
If you do need to do a shorter cut than usual, don’t worry too much. Once every now and then isn’t going to do much lasting damage, but keep these short cuts infrequent. For shorter lengths, it’s also a good idea to drop some fertilizer around your lawn to give you grass an extra hit of nutrients.
3. Don’t Collect the Clippings
When mowing the lawn, a lot of people attach bags to the back of their lawnmowers that are designed to collect the clippings. This might seem like a genius idea, but it’s actually not the key to a healthy lawn.
You might not like the look of cut grass across your lawn, but it’s helping the rest of your grass to grow! The cut blades break down over time and are absorbed into the soil, bringing essential nutrients to the living grass’ roots.
If you’re doing a big cut on long grass, this is the only time you should pick up your clippings. These longer blades might be packed full of nutrients, but they can also block the soil, preventing new blades from growing through.
4. Service Your Lawn Mower
Every year you should service your lawn mower before the growing season, which is usually around spring. The most crucial part of this service is checking the blades.
If the blades aren’t sharp enough, you’re not going to get a professional cut. Sharp blades also cause less stress to your grass, preventing any ripping and tearing or pulling the blades up from their roots before you mow your lawn learn how to sharpen the blades or get new ones fitted.
5. Try Not to Cut Wet Grass
Mowing wet grass doesn’t cause any immediate issues, and you can still get a good cut, but it’s not the best time to carry out lawn maintenance. This is mainly because of the big clumps of cuttings that you’ll have left behind across your lawn. They can also get stuck on the base of your lawnmower and around the blades, causing plenty of unwanted issues.
Also, if you’ve ever tried mowing up an incline on wet grass, you’ll know it’s a recipe for disaster! Play it safe and stick to only cutting the grass on dry days.
6. Switch Up Your Mowing
It’s easy to make mowing your lawn in the same direction a habit. If you want a professional finish though, you need to switch up the direction you mow in from time to time.
By mowing the same way, you’ll actually notice that your grass blades start growing in the same direction. This definitely doesn’t leave with the neat lawn you’re looking for! It can also start leaving permanent tracks from your lawnmower on your grass, ruining the blades beneath.
To stop this from happening, switch up mowing side to side for a diagonal cut, or move from the top to bottom of your garden. You don’t have to, but it’s a good idea to change the way you cut each time to avoid it becoming a habit.
7. Bring in the Professionals
Mowing a lawn is time-consuming and takes a lot more care and consideration than you might first think. If you’ll struggle to fit it into your schedule or don’t think you’ll remember all of these lawn care tips, it’s a good idea to hire professionals. They have the time and knowledge to maintain your lawn, so it’s always at its neatest.
To find professionals, look for a lawn mowing service near me. Remember to always check out reviews from past customers to make sure you get a team you can trust!
Start Using These Lawn Mowing Tips
Lawn mowing tips are a great way to make sure you’re taking proper care of your garden, so it looks its best all year round. Just like any other plant, grass needs adequate care and maintenance to stay healthy!
For more home and garden tips, be sure to take a look at other blogs on our website.