How to Mow Your Lawn Like a Professional

Whether you have a gas mower, or an electric mower, cutting grass is a chore. Most people just grab their lawnmower, weekend after weekend, and push through the aching task as quickly as possible.

Learn how to cut your lawn just like the professionals who cut grass for a living. You can create a better looking and healthier lawn with these tips.

Maybe, once you see how amazing your yard looks, your weekend chore will become your weekly hobby.

Adjust the Height of Your Mower

When you cut the top one-third of your grass off, this helps it to grow stronger. Less energy is put into re-growing the entire blade, which means more energy can be put into growing deeper, stronger roots.

Another reason to not cut your grass too short is so that it doesn’t burn in the hot summer sun. Maintaining a consistent height will help ensure a lush green lawn.

Use Sharp Mower Blades

The last thing you want to do is rip grass out of the soil. If your mower blades aren’t sharp, this very well could happen.

Make sure that your mower blades are sharp. This will ensure an even, clean cut each time you mow.

Don’t Mow Wet Grass

While your grass won’t get damaged if you mow it wet, your chances of getting clumps of grass and a clogged lawn mower undercarriage increase.

Clumped grass also doesn’t cut evenly, which can leave your lawn looking quite odd when you are done with the task.

If the ground is wet, the weight of a mower could also compact the soil underneath the wheels, creating visible tracks in your lawn. Compacted soil will not grow grass as well as the rest of the yard.

Mowing a Shaded Lawn

Grass that grows in shady areas need different attention than those that grow in sunny parts of your yard.

Keep the shaded grass longer than sunny, bright areas. Grass, like other green plants, uses the process of photosynthesis to grow.

Photosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy, which helps facilitate the growth cycle. The longer grass blades allow for photosynthesis to take place in shady areas.

Mow in the Shade

Speaking of shade, the best time of day to mow is early in the morning or late in the evening. Ideally, whenever the lawn is shaded, and not in direct sunlight, it is the best time to mow.

When you mow, you want to create as little stress on your lawn as possible. If you mow in the middle of the day, when the grass is dehydrated and trying to recover, the act of mowing will stress your grass out even more. If you cut when the grass will lose less water, when it’s not in direct sunlight, the grass will recover quicker.

If you want a lush green lawn, cutting your grass when it is shaded will ensure that you are mowing it in the healthiest way possible.

Let the Grass Clippings Lie

In addition to saving you time bagging your lawn clippings, letting the clippings fall to the ground can help your grass grow stronger. Called grasscycling, the clippings can provide up to 25 percent of your lawn’s fertilizer.

If you want to improve the natural fertilization efforts, you can get a mulching mower which cuts the grass into smaller pieces; when the pieces are smaller, they decompose faster. Although a mulcher is not necessary, it’s another option to increase the chances of a beautiful lawn.

If you have a bagger mower, and you want to continue to use that, you can compost your clippings. This will help to create a fertilizer you can use for your garden or in bare areas of your lawn that you need lay down some fertilized dirt and reseed.

Change the Direction You Mow In

Try to avoid mowing in the same direction every time. Cutting your grass the same way every time will change the direction that grass grows. Instead of it growing strong and straight, it will tend to grow on an angle.

When your grass doesn’t grow straight, it won’t get cut evenly or to the same length. This can ultimately affect the way your yard looks.