As long as your commercial property is mowed regularly and kept looking neat and trim, then you probably haven’t given much additional thought to your mowing service. If they’re timely and thorough, you’re satisfied. But there’s more to mowing than most people realize and it’s worth giving it a closer look.
The truth is, mowing can have a tremendous impact on the overall health of your lawn. In fact, it can even affect the color, thickness, and performance of your property’s turf. If your lawn isn’t as green as you’d like it to be or it seems to have a lot of bare patches, your first inclination may be to assume there’s something wrong with your lawn care program. Most people don’t recognize that it could be a problem with mowing.
Is Your Property Mowed Correctly?
First and foremost, it’s important to understand that it is possible for your lawn to be mowed improperly. Because it’s a seemingly basic service, most people don’t realize that there is a right and wrong way to mow the grass.
One of the biggest mistakes made is that the lawn is mowed too short. While people like a short lawn, it’s actually healthier for your grass to be “mowed tall.” We generally recommend a mowing height of somewhere around 3 to 4 inches.
Why does height matter?
Why does height matter?It matters because mowing is an action that puts a tremendous amount of stress on a lawn. The more you cut off, the more stressed you make your lawn. And when you cut too short, it’s harder for your grass to recover from the cuts. You’ll find that a lawn which is mowed too short, can begin to look pale green or yellow.
By weakening your lawn’s health with mowing that is too short, you also make it more prone to weed growth. Opportunistic weeds are much more likely to invade weakened lawns than dense and thriving ones.
Mowing with Poor Equipment
Of course, height is not the only way that mowing can impact your lawn’s performance. The equipment utilized can also make a big difference. When a lawn is mowed with outdated equipment that has an unlevel mowing deck or dull blades, the poor results will show. In fact, when grass is cut with dull blades it puts a lot more stress on the lawn than when it’s cut with a sharp blade, making a neat cut.
Unfortunately, lots of companies still operate with outdated equipment that should have been replaced a long time ago. At Bluegrass, however, we use state-of-the-art mowing equipment with freshly sharpened blades. We include trimming and blowing for a final neat appearance—recognizing the importance of not scalping the edges of your lawn (around hardscaping), which makes those areas prone to weed growth.
Understanding the Complexity of Lawn Care Program
As you can see, there are many contributing factors to the overall results that you receive from a lawn care program. Mowing is one factor that is often overlooked but that can have a tremendous impact on the success—or failure—of your lawn’s performance.
By choosing to work with a lawn care provider that understands all of the factors that can impact your lawn’s success, you’ll have a better chance of winding up with the results that you really want.
At Bluegrass, we offer a Landcare Management Plan (or LMP) that takes the burden off of you. This includes a thorough assessment of your property and the seamless transition to our experts handling all of your property management needs. We understand proper mowing techniques and how they impact the other services that we perform. That’s why it’s so helpful to allow us to handle it all. But if you’re still handling your own mowing, we’ll be sure to point out if improper mowing is leading to problems. After all, we want to be able to work together for the greatest success. It is our goal to help you have the results that you truly desire.
