Growing a lawn is a demanding job, requiring 200 gallons of drinking water per person per day, fertilizing, and mowing. You need to get the right mix of these elements, and you’ll have a lush green lawn. While water and fertilizer needs can be relatively simple, knowing how to mow the lawn can be more complicated.
Follow this guide and learn how often you should mow your lawn.
When Should You Mow the Grass?
The simple answer is to mow the grass when it needs it, but this isn’t helpful and doesn’t tell you specifically when you need to mow your lawn. Grass has a growing season where it has the highest growing demand. This typically starts in spring and lasts through the summer.
You need to mow the lawn during this growing season to keep it looking neat and orderly. While you may need to mow the lawn during the dormant season, it won’t be nearly as often. Some cool-season grasses have two growing seasons, spring and fall.
How Often Should You Be Mowing the Grass?
As a general rule, you should aim to mow your lawn at least once a week during your lawn’s growing season. However, you may need to mow more often in certain situations. For example, if it rained a lot in the day or two after your mow, you may need to mow again sooner than a week.
During the dormant season, you can reduce your frequency of mowing. You could mow every other week or even once a month.
Pay Attention to the Lawn Height
While we have general timeline guides, you need to customize this timeline for your lawn’s needs. To do this, you need to look at the height of your grass. Cutting the lawn too short compromises its root system and ability to grow.
The ideal grass height is 3-3.5 inches. Don’t mow your lawn unless it’s taller than this. So, during the dormant season, you can wait until your lawn is tall enough to warrant mowing. You may find that your frequency changes throughout seasons as the growth rate changes.
The One Third Rule
If you end up waiting too long and your grass height starts to become out of control, you can’t hack it all off down short in one shot. This will overly stress the grass and starve it of valuable nutrients in the blades, which can kill it. Instead, follow the one-third rule.
Do not remove more than one-third of the grass’s height in a single cutting. Then weight for your grass to recover, and mow again. Repeat this cycle until the lawn is at your desired height.
Get Help With Mowing the Lawn
During the growing season, lawn care demands can be quite high. If you don’t want to spend all of your time cutting the lawn, then it’s time to consider hiring some help. Hiring a service like My Elite Lawn Care can make lawn care simple.
Look for a service that can do more than just mowing the lawn. They should be able to address all of your lawn’s needs.
Time to Mow the Lawn!
Now that you know how and when to mow the lawn, it’s time to take care of your lawn. Create a mowing schedule by paying attention to the weather, climate, time of year, type of grass, and growth rate. Be adaptable with your schedule to meet the needs of your lawn.
Check out our household and real estate articles for more helpful advice on keeping your home looking its best.