When it comes to taking care of your lawn, one of the most important maintenance practices is also one of the most basic... mow high.
There is a fight for sunlight. If the grass doesn’t shade the weed, the weed will shade the grass. Sunlight is food. Food is strength and life. Shade is weakness, disease, and death. Grass will shade the weeds only if it is tall enough. The shade of tall, dense grass turf will prevent essential sunlight from reaching most weeds and, will aid in the destruction of new baby weed seedlings (such as the notorious dandelion).
Myth: “If I mow short, I can wait longer until I have to mow again.” False! Your
grass needs grass blades to do photosynthesis (convert sunshine into sugar) to feed
the roots. When you whack the blades off, the grass has to RACE to make more blades
to make sugar. It then grows amazingly fast. This fast growth uses up a lot of
the grass’s stored sugar, and weakens the plant. It is now vulnerable to disease
and pests! Tall grass is healthier and can use the extra sugar to make rhizomes
(more grass plants) thus thickening the turf. Have you ever noticed that short grass
in the summer is always riddled with dead brown patches? To keep your lawn looking
its best, remove only about one-
If you have a serious weed infestation, consider mowing twice as frequently as you normally do. The sensitive growing point for grass is near the soil. The sensitive growing point for most weeds is near the top of the plant. So when you mow, it’s as if you are giving your grass a haircut and cutting the heads off of the weeds.
Another good practice is to change direction with each mowing. This keeps the turf growing in an upright position rather than leaning in the direction it was mowed. It also helps reduce turf wear and the possibility of scalping.
Using a sharp rotary mower blade is probably the single most important requirement for proper mowing. A dull blade rips and shreds the grass instead of cutting it. Mowing with a dull edge makes the grass susceptible to several problems, such as brown leaf tips, diseases, and insects. A good guideline for blade sharpening is to sharpen your mower blade once each month.
During the summer months, it's a good idea to water your lawn the day before you mow and try to mow during the coolest part of the day. This minimizes the browning effect of summer mowing and decreases the time it takes the turf to heal.
Finally, when mowing, be sure to leave the clippings on the lawn. This adds organic matter and nutrients back into the soil.
