Lawn Care Tips – How To Best Groom Your Lawn

Many gardeners don’t realize that their mowing patterns could actually be doing their lawn harm. Lawn care includes mowing techniques and can produce a lawn that not only looks lush and green, but looks well groomed as well.

These lawn care tips for grooming your lawn are easy to implement and really only need a change in thinking, and the way you do things.

Poor Lawn Mowing Practices:

• Mowing in the same pattern every time; that is, north-south or east-west.
• Mowing too short or too long
• Mowing when the grass is wet
• Mowing with blunt blades

Good Lawn Mowing Practices:

• Rotating your mowing pattern. That is, north-south, then east-west, then northwest-southeast, then perhaps in a square.
• Only cutting a third of the height of the lawn each time you mow
• Using good quality sharp blades
• Leaving the clippings on the ground (only if you are mowing regularly to the one third rule)

A good mowing routine spreads the stress each time you cut. If you cut in the same pattern all the time, your lawn will start to form compacted wheel ruts from the lawn mower. Your grass will also learn to grow in a certain direction as well. This leads to poor thatch development including over thatching which, together with compacted soil, makes water penetration difficult.

Your lawn’s heath is not measured by how green it looks today. It is measured by how healthy the thatch and root system is. By using good mowing techniques, your lawn will develop an even thatch that allows water to penetrate, and a deep root system that helps to stop the soil from compacting.

With all that in place, worms and other beneficial organisms can survive, further improving your lawn. Rotational mowing also helps to promote a grass that grows up, rather than sideways. This is the effect we are looking for when we talk about ‘grooming’ your lawn.  It also makes life a lot easier when small problems do develop – and they generally are small problems in a well looked after lawn. A grass seeding tool can quickly repair any problem area and before you know it, those small problems are gone.

A good lawn care maintenance routine that includes rotational mowing can do wonders for you lawn – and it only takes a change in thinking and how you do things – not extra work.