Three mowing tips that your lawn will absolutely love.
Three simple tips from Lovelawns that can make a huge difference to the quality and health of your lawn as we head into the rainy season here on the Gold Coast. This weeks blog gives you 3 mowing tips that your lawn will love.
Height Matters Don't Mow Too Low
I won’t bore you with the science of photosynthesis, but essentially the area of leaf determines how much energy your lawn can produce. This translates directly to the health of your lawn.
In the winter months, the days are shorter and there is less sun, so you need to let the blades grow longer to get more energy. Conversely, in summer the days are longer so you can keep your lawn shorter. As we have just stepped into a new season, it is vital that if you haven’t already put your blades lower on your mower you should do it now.
Still on height, there is an important rule for mowing longer grass, the one third rule. The one third rule is the never remove more than one third of the leaf when mowing. This means if you leave your lawn get too long you should mow it a couple of times, lowering the blades each time until you reach your desired height. Never removing more than 1/3 in a single mow.
Avoid Mowing Wet Grass When Possible
With all the rain we have had lately, an important mowing tip you should follow is never mow wet grass. Firstly mowing a wet yard can cause lots of damage to your lawn. Clipping clump everywhere and the wheels of your mower can leave indents across your lawn.
More importantly cutting wet grass opens up your lawn to disease. When you cut a blade of grass it is the same as if you cut any living thing, the insides are exposed. This allows diseases to get into your grass and can cause ongoing problems. Whenever possible allow your lawn to dry out thoroughly before you mow.
Keep Your Blades Sharp
Mowers are often an under serviced piece of machinery. With the quality and lifespan of some of our Australian mowers, many people to never bother servicing their mower, as long as it runs and their grass is getting cut. This means many mowers have blunt blades.
Much like with mowing wet grass, blunt blades also often lead to problems with disease. Instead of a nice clean cut that heals quickly, blunt blades roughly hack at the blade leaving a jagged edge that doesn’t heal as quickly. Aside from this, blunt blades also leave you with a rough finish.
So our final and possibly most important of all mowing tips is make sure your blades are sharp. If they can be sharpened take them to a profession, or just head into your local mowing shop and grab some new blades.