Just how Badly can you Mess Up Mowing your Lawn?

One of the biggest ways to completely screw up your lawn in a very short period of time is to mow it without any regard.

Keep in mind that mowing your lawn is a violent process.  Lawn mowers are very heavy, gas powered machines with spinning weapons of mass destruction.  Any time you vary at all from the recommended method of mowing and you can cause long lasting negative effects to the quality of your grass, especially when we are in such a significant stretch of harsh lawn care weather.

Keep the following things in mind when it comes to mowing.

The Time of Day you Mow Matters….. A Lot!

It’s always best to mow your lawn in the morning after any dew has dried and before the temperatures begin to rise.  When mowing isn’t the first thing on your mind try to keep in mind that mowing during the heat of the day can be one of the most destructive things you can do to your lawn.  PERIOD.  Our cool season turf types don’t like it when the sun beats on them for long periods of time and when temperatures get close to and exceed 85 degrees, your lawn really begins to get stressed!  Mowing it during that stress can cause shock and dormancy.  Shock and dormancy can cause weeds and crabgrass because there is nothing to compete and shade the soil.  If you can’t mow in the morning wait until at least dinner time.

And for goodness sake STOP MOWING YOUR LAWN IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY!!!!!!!

Water Like you Know what your doing.

Keep the turf resilient by watering deeply a couple of times per week.  Cycle and soak, cycle and soak, cycle and soak!!!

Grow it out Man!

Everybody wants to mow short and that’s just wrong!  To create a healthy lawn, set your mower to a higher cutting height to avoid removing more than one-third of the grass blade when mowing. Not only does this look better, but it helps your grass develop a deep root system, effectively choking out weeds in the process.

Sharpen your Blade.

Shredded grass causes stress, introduces disease, creates poor color and just generally causes a terrible situation.  Ask yourself this question, “When was the last time I sharpened the mower blade?”  Yeah, that’s what I thought.