Gardeners, who have or want lush green grass in their backyard often have a common question: how often should they mow the lawn? Before we move into the frequency of mowing the lawn it is important to understand the various benefits of mowing the lawn.
Mowing the lawn makes your lawn healthy, vigorous and looks nice. It is important to note that if you mow the grass too often or mow the grass at a short height then you might potentially cause damage to the lawn. Thus it is important to understand the dimensions of cutting the grass and it is also vital to know how often you should be mowing the lawn.
Benefits of mowing the lawn
Before we go into a detailed analysis of the frequency of lawn mowing it is important to understand the several benefits as well as advantages that you get from mowing the lawn.
When you mow your lawn then it helps in bringing enough light as well as nutrients to all parts of the lawn which is beneficial for the growth of grass. When you mow the lawn regularly, the roots are likely to be branched better and they will be healthier. This results in a grassy and beautiful lawn that is lush with robust green grass.
If you don’t mow your lawn often then the grass will become overgrow and it provides the ideal place for a lot of weeds as well as pests to hide and grow in it. Alternatively, if you trim the grass regularly then you are likely to protect your lawn and grass from different types of infestations that are common with high grass.
Another significant advantage of regular mowing of grass is the fact that if your lawn is regularly trimmed then it has the potential of recovering faster from adverse climatic or weather conditions, various diseases, and harmful pests.
How often should you mow your lawn?
Now moving to the main and fundamental question that a lot of the gardeners, as well as lawn owners, seem to ask: How often should you mow your lawn and what should be the height of the grass?
Well, let us have a look. Some of the factors that are considered when mowing the lawn and its frequency are the type of grass, the growth rate of the grass, the height of the grass, watering and fertilization method, mowing the dry grass and ‘one-third of the length at a time’ rule.
Type of grass: The best time for mowing the lawn is usually when it is the season of grass growing, for instance, if you have warm or hot season grass in your lawn then you must mow it at the time of the summer.
However, if you have the grass of cold season then you must mow it during the time of spring or early fall. The grass does not grow fast during the cold days and thus you wouldn’t need to cut or trim the grass during the wintertime or even late autumn.
The growth rate of the grass: Generally speaking, the frequency of you mowing the lawn depends directly on how quickly grass of particular type grows and also the height of grass that you want in the lawn. For instance, when it is the growing seasons you may choose to mow the yards every week which is generally sufficient for keeping the grass healthy.
When it is the resting period the frequency of the mowing can be reduced so that you only mow when it is necessary. The resting period allows you the luxury of mowing the lawn every two weeks or even less frequently than that however it also depends on the type of grass that you have.
The height of grass: There are general recommendations and guidelines on the frequency of mowing the lawn. However, you must treat your lawn individually and follow instructions as well as the mowing schedule as per your requirements.
The requirement for different lawns is based on the type of grass you have, the weather conditions, soil, and various other factors. Thus it is important to know the general guidelines when it comes to trimming your grass or mowing the lawn but it is equally vital that you must follow your grass requirements so that you can get the best results.
You must check the height of the grass before you mow and the grass must be tall enough for you to justify mowing and trimming it. Here it is worth reminding if you keep the grass too short then it can lead to the weakening of the root systems and thus the grass won’t be able to absorb the necessary water and nutrients efficiently. This will also affect the appearance as well as the health of the lawn.
Watering and fertilization method: The type of lawn fertilizer and the amount of fertilizer that you use as well as the frequency of watering has an impact on how quickly the grass grows in your lawn. As a general rule of thumb the more fertilizer you apply and the more watering you do, you can expect the grass to grow that quickly and vice versa. And if the grass grows quickly then you would need to mow that grass more frequently. So the frequency of the lawn mowing also depends on the watering and the type as well as the quantity of the fertilizer that you apply in the lawn.
Mowing when the grass is dry: One of the important rules of mowing is that you must not mow or trim the grass when it is wet, Thus it is recommended that you must mow your lawn during the mid-morning when the dew has dried up. This is because when the grass is wet due to watering or rain it becomes stretched and heavy.
If you decide to trim the grass during that time then it will result in an uneven finish. If you want to avoid this then you must sync the schedule of grass trimming with the weather conditions so that you can get consistent and even grass cuttings.
Let us have a look at the ideal height of mowing depending on the grass type.
Bahiagrass – 2 to
3 inches mowing
Common Bermuda grass – 0.75 to 1 inch
Bentgrass – 0.25 to 1 inch
Blue grama – 2 to 3 inches
Hybrid Bermudagrass – 0.5 to 1 inch
Centipede grass – 1 to 2 inches
Buffalo grass – 2 to 3 inches
Tall Fescue – 2 to 3 inches
Fine Fescue – 1.5 to 2.5 inches
Annual ryegrass – 1.5 to 2 inches
Kentucky bluegrass – 1.75 to 2.5 inches
Zoysia grass – 1 to 2 inches
St. Augustine – 1.5 to 2.5 inches
So these are some of the common grasses found across the world and the ideal height of grass that you should be mowing.
If you don’t find your type of grass in this list you should easily find this information on the grass seed box to find out the ideal of the height of your type of grass that you have in your lawn so that you can mow accordingly.
‘One-third of the length at a time’ rule: You can’t correct an overgrown lawn by mowing or trimming the grass short. This will cause the grass to be stressed and keep it away from the food-producing parts and what happens then is the grass that doesn’t receive enough nutrients has the potential of turning brown.
One of the important rules of trimming grass is to only cut it to one-third of the height of the blades at one time. It is alright if you prefer shorter grass however you must do it gradually and not at once. You must mow regularly if you want but only do it one-third of the length and keep repeating until you are satisfied.
Conclusion
We hope that this gives you some pointers when it comes to cutting your grass and at what height is best, the real takeaway is that you don’t want to go to short and don’t let your grass too long otherwise you will take a longer time to mow is down to your desired height because of the one-third rule.
We all have our mowing regimes when it comes to mowing our best lawnmowers and best practice so how often should you mow your lawn? Its trial and error to a certain extent use this guide to put you in the ballpark but once you have got a regime that is working for your lawn stick to it.