Lawn Care: Lawn Mowing Tips

To get the best from your lawn, and your lawn mower, you need to learn some basic techniques that make mowing easy and give the best visual effect. They aren’t complicated but they do mean that you have to think a little before dragging the mower out of the shed and attacking the lawn just because it’s Sunday morning and your in-laws are coming for lunch! Here are three tips that will revolutionise your mowing, and restore your lawn:

  1. The direction of mowing should be altered every one to two mowings by 90 degrees. Mowing at right angles to the previous direction in which you mowed the lawn prevents the grass from repeatedly being pushed in one direction and laying over which actually makes the grass lean in that direction permanently. This is particularly important if you cut at high mowing heights as that too can cause the grass blades to grow in one particular direction after numerous cuts. If scalping (bald patches) in certain areas of the lawn is a problem for you, changing the mowing direction every second mow will minimise the scalping too.
  2. You should never mow when your lawn is wet from rain, dew or watering. There are three different reasons that mowing wet grass is a bad idea. The first is that wet grass weighs more than dry grass and bends under the blade rather than being cut by it, so when it dries, you’ll find your lawn has a very uneven cut. The second reason is that wet cutting grass can spread fungal spores that then take root in your lawn and the third reason is that it is much more difficult to lift wet grass from the ground once cut, so you have a lot more work to do if you don’t have a mulching mower!
  3. The emerald carpet look of many lawns has nothing to do with the cut, or the mower, or even the person who cares for the lawn, the secret is in the rolling. Lawn rollers flatten the grass and the ground, giving a perfect finish.

Lawn rollers give the best effect to your newly cut lawn. Victorian lawn roller photograph courtesy of stibbons

 

Here at BlueWorldGardener we have the largest collection of Lawn Mowers on the internet.

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