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Lawn Mowing
If only it were as simple as just cutting the grass. But this facet of proper lawn care is no less important than any other. If you do everything else properly except for mowing, you will not have as nice a lawn as you could.
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ILG has mowed about 10,000 lawns in the past 4 years. The following comments are based upon observations of all the different lawns that we do - and we see all kinds.
There are 3 facets of mowing for which our experience and all the textbooks agree:
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MOST IMPORTANT! - Never mow more than one third the grass plant's height - To do so places great stress on the remaining plant. If you've chopped off the bulk of its green leaves which are at the top of the plant, it has very little left with which to carry on photosynthesis and other plant functions. Do this once and plant should recover in a couple weeks. Do this twice in a row and the plant will need 4 to 6 weeks to recover. Do this 3 to 4 times in a row and the plant may need a season to recover - and in the meantime, you're growing a new crop of weeds instead of just grass.
Mowing taller is healthier for the grass than mowing shorter - Weed seeds need light to germinate. A 3" cut provides 50% more height (and resulting shade) than a 2" cut. A 4" cut provides 33% more shade than a 3" cut and 100% more than a 2" cut. The taller the plant, the longer are its leaf blades. This translates to deeper roots, fewer weeds and more tolerance to drought and disease.
Leave the grass as short as possible for winter - Conditions for snow mold and other cold weather turf malady's are promulgated by tall grass blades bending over and touching themselves or other grass blades. This is easy to prevent by simply mowing very late in the season after all growth has stopped and by mowing very short.
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