Lawn Mowing by Jeff Rugg on Creators.com

Recently

Water Gardening in Patio Containers If properly designed and maintained, backyard ponds and water gardens can offer tranquil refuges that lower stress and enhance the beauty of your landscaping and the value of your property. If you don't have the space for a full size water garden, …Read more. Rose Rosette Disease Q: I have a group of roses of various kinds in a small flowerbed that has been around for over five years. An unusual thing has happened to one of my rose bushes. This spring, it is growing very small leaves. Really small, like dozens in just a …Read more. Tulips and Junipers Q: I am moving soon and want to take some of my tulips and other bulbs with me. Some were grown by my mom and grandmother, so they mean a lot to me and won't mean anything to the new people. Some of the bulbs are done blooming, and others are still …Read more. Lawn Mowers Q: Our lawn quit. We got just two mowings out of it this spring. The cost to repair it will be more than it is worth. I was thinking that we should get an old-fashioned mower that doesn't require gasoline, but my husband thinks they are heavy and …Read more.

Lawn Mowing

Q: I recently read where the old rule of mowing a lawn by cutting off one third of the grass at a time had been changed to cutting the grass by fifty percent at a time. Letting the grass grow between mowings is supposed to save money and pollute less by not having to mow as often. I would also have fewer clippings to bag. What do you think? Can I get by cutting the lawn once every two weeks?

A: Lawn grasses are the hardiest plants around when it comes to cutting plants down from their preferred height to a smaller man-made height. Grass plants that want to grow to at least two feet tall are repeatedly cut down to just a few inches tall. Most plants could not survive such drastic pruning.

Given a chance, lawn grasses would love to have a longer leaf. The leaf would produce more food, which would allow for a bigger root system, which in turn would have better access to more water when a dry spell occurs. Mowing your grass as high as possible in the normal range for your grass species is the healthy thing to do, but longer grass doesn't always look as nice to everyone.

Cool season grasses like bluegrass, ryegrass and fescue can all be cut 1 3/4 to 3 inches tall. Warm season grasses like bent grass, Bermuda, centipede and zoysia can be kept at 1 to 2 inches tall.

Mowing grass is supposed to be done so that you cut off the top one third and leave the bottom two thirds, not on a calendar basis. You might have to mow every four days in the spring and not for fifteen days in the summer if it is not irrigated. Mowing once a week is what most of us do, and we sometimes cut off a lot more than one third and sometimes not so much. Mowing following the one-third rule is a guideline that works well.

Skipping mowings to let the grass grow to more than five inches tall for cool season grasses and four inches tall for warm season grass may seem ok at first. In reality, what we would do is mow when the calendar lets us fit it in, just like we do now. So, sometimes it would be six or seven inches tall and sometimes only four or five inches tall.

It would really look unsightly to most people if we did that, but there are also grass health reasons that should keep us mowing following the one-third rule.

Consistent mowing at the one-third height causes the grass plant to respond by sending more tillers out horizontally, thus spreading and filling in the bare areas around each plant. Letting it grow tall before cutting allows the grass to grow the stalk of each tiller upright before it gets cut off. So, when you mow, it cuts off too much of the grass blade and just leaves stubs. I am sure you have seen this when you find a tall clump of grass along the lawn edge that was missed for the previous couple of mowings and you finally cut it down.

Another benefit of consistent mowing at the shorter height is shorter grass clippings. The vast majority of lawns should not have the clippings removed when mowed. Let me repeat that; proper lawn mowing leaves the short grass clippings on the lawn. The shorter clippings quickly decay and feed the lawn. A year of clippings left on the lawn is the equivalent of an application of fertilizer. That's one free step in a three or four step fertilizer program. And the savings are even bigger if you don't have to pay to send your clippings to a landfill.

Grass clippings do not contribute to thatch, even if they are very long. Don't let anyone try to sell you a lawn care service based on thatch being produced by grass clippings.

Skipping a mowing to let the grass grow longer may cause the clippings to be too long to settle into the lawn, possibly forcing you to mow them again, bag them or to leave them to smother areas of the lawn. None of these are better options than mowing using the one-third rule.

If you have to have a lawn area, mow it as tall as possible in the range listed above. Mow it often enough to have short clippings that you leave on the lawn, not on a calendar basis if possible. Use as little water as possible to keep it alive during dry spells. A side benefit of dry lawns in the summer is that beetles will lay fewer eggs that turn into grubs.

Email questions to Jeff Rugg at info@greenerview.com. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.