4 simple mowing mistakes to avoid

Avoiding a few common mowing mistakes can make your yard look beautiful again in just a few weeks. Believe it or not, the way you mow your lawn makes a huge impact on the overall health of your lawn. Some people do spend a lot of time and money to maintain their lawn. But by simply applying a few sound mowing techniques, you can be on your way saving and maintaining your landscape without spending a dime.
 
1. Mowing with dull blades.
This is the most common mowing mistake. Dull blades tear the grass instead of slicing it clean. In return, the tips of the grass become damaged and turn brown. So instead of having a green lawn after mowing, you’ll get a brown one in a few days. The brown tips of damaged grass can make an entire lawn look dry and staving for water. But in reality, it is only the tips of the grass that are brown, not the whole lawn itself.
Lawn mower blades should be sharpened on a regular basis. For a sizable yard of ¼ acre or more, a once a month schedule should be okay.
Tip: Keep an extra set of blades on hand and change out once a month in season. While the spare one is used, then you can sharpen the other set.
By the way, sharp mower blades not only decrease the stress to your lawn when mowing, it also maintains your lawn mower operating in good shape.
2. Cutting the grass too low.
This practice makes you think that it can save you time because you do not need to cut often. But this creates all kinds of long-lasting negative effects to your lawn. One of them is by drying up your turf quickly because there is no adequate cover for your bare soil to block the sun. And this also allows weed seeds a place to settle and sprout.
The proper way is to mow higher and more often. Grass length that are high puts less stress to your lawn because the additional height and thickness serves as a shade to the soil below and keep the weeds out. A typical height for a traditional lawn is somewhere between 3.25 and 4 inches.
Tip: Never cut more than ¼ length of grass on a single cutting. Removing too much grass at once puts a lot of stress into the lawn and also creates a mess of clumped dead grass that can kill the lawn below. So, mow higher and mow more often. This is a great way to keep your yard looking fresh and clean.
3. Bagging the lawn clippings.
Just leave the clippings on where they came from. They contain valuable nutrients that feed your lawn and this is the most natural way to fertilize your lawn. Lawn clippings contain nitrogen (this gives the healthy green hue on your lawn) and other important minerals that lawn needs. Do not worry if this makes your lawn look dirty because it will break down over time. You may evenly distribute the clippings to somewhat mask your lawn from looking dirty.
4. Mowing wet grass.
Some of us do believe that a wet grass is soft, hence it’s easier to mow. But this damages your lawn blades and in the long run, the mower itself. Wet grass dulls the blades quickly plus it works more harder as the grass becomes bogged down and clogged underneath.
This technique produces a tear cut instead of the slice cut on which as we have mentioned in tip number 1 creates the brown tip issue with cutting your lawn using dull blades.
In addition, clumping from a wet mowing can snuff out the good grass as it lays in the yard and dries out. This in return creates unwanted bare spots and thatch.
So do not mow on a wet grass. Let your lawn dry out whenever possible before mowing.

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