Most lawn problems start with a simple issue: you don’t know how often to cut the lawn!
Should you be out there every week, or is it better to leave at least a month between mowing? Moreover, how do certain weather conditions affect lawn mowing frequency? Can you afford to do it less often when it’s cold – and what about when there’s heavy rainfall?
Then you need to consider your climate. Hot or warm summers? Dry or wet? Mild winters or snow and ice? And what about the type of grass in your lawn – couch, buffalo, centipede, zoysia, kykuyu?
There isn’t a single, definitive answer so we’ve accumulated a handful of common questions asked about lawn mowing. This guide will answer them all by offering in-depth advice and tips on how often you should mow your lawn.
How Often Should You Mow The Lawn?
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In general, lawn care experts suggest that mowing “little and often” is the best way to cultivate a lush lawn. Most homeowners are aware of this concept, but there’s a big problem: “little and often” is pretty ambiguous!
As a very general rule, you should mow your lawn once every 3-14 days.
That’s narrowed it down slightly – and it means you shouldn’t leave longer than two weeks between mows, in most circumstances. However, a large number of factors contribute to whether you’re mowing closer to the three-day or fourteen-day mark.
How Low Should You Mow The Lawn?
This is arguably a more important question than asking how often you should mow the lawn. Incorrect mowing height is a key factor in determining if your lawn looks good or not.
- Cut your lawn too short, and it leads to scalping. This means blades of grass are ripped from their roots and leave horrible muddle patches in the lawn.
- Cut your lawn too long, and you get overgrown areas that suffocate one another. Plus, there’s more chance of weeds growing when the blades of grass are still too long after a trim.
With that in mind, you should aim to mow your lawn to around 2 to 3 inches in height.
Every lawn mower will have a cutting setting that tells you how low or high it cuts the grass. Read the manual to see which setting relates to this specific height – or gets you as close to it as possible.
Once you’ve achieved this height, you should only ever remove one-third of grass height with every subsequent mow. That’s kind of why the 3-14 days frequency is recommended; most grass will grow an inch or two in that timeframe, meaning cutting one-third of it always brings you back to the 2/3-inch mark.
How Mower Type Impacts The Cutting Frequency
Did you know that different types of mowers will change how frequently you cut the grass in your garden? We typically see three main mower types:
- Rotary
- Cylindrical
- Robotic
The majority of lawnmowers are rotary. This type of mower uses sharp blades that rotate under the mower and spin at high speeds. It’s not the most precise way to mow the lawn, but it is more efficient and cuts longer grass blades better. You’ll find electric or petrol-powered rotary mowers, as well as plenty of ride-on options. Due to the high-speed cutting mechanism, rotary mowers can be used every 7 to 10 days.
Cylindrical mowers are your more “classic” lawnmowers. They often come in manual versions, meaning you push them without anything else powering the blades. These mowers have fixed blades at the base that rotate in a reel. As such, they’re only really useful for cutting short grass – and you should use a cylindrical mower every 3-5 days because they can’t always cut low enough to remove a third of your grass.
Finally, a robot lawn mower is the most recent innovation in the lawn care world. It uses unique technology to mow your lawn while you do something else. The size of robot lawnmowers means they’re designed to “trim” your lawn rather than cut it as short as you’d normally hope. As a result, experts suggest you send your robot lawn mower out to cut the grass every day or two.
How The Weather Affects Lawn Mowing Frequency
You’ve just seen how the type of mower changes how often you should cut your lawn, but what about the weather?
This catches a lot of people out, so let’s break it down for you based on the seasons:
- Winter – Grass tends to grow dormant in the winter due to a lack of sunlight. Because of this, you don’t need to mow the lawn as frequently. It might not grow that much over four months of winter, and other weather conditions also limit your mowing time. Cold temperatures lead to frosty lawns, which should never be mowed as you’ll damage the lawn.
We recommend not mowing at all in winter unless there are some random warm spells. If you live in an unseasonably warm climate, then every 6 weeks will still suffice.
- Spring – This is where grass grows the most. Ample rainfall combines with lots of sun to trigger rapid growth. You should mow every week at least during the spring months. Increase the frequency to every 3-4 days if it’s very sunny and dry between rainy spells.
- Summer – Early summer has weather patterns similar to spring, and you’ll need to mow the lawn every 1-2 weeks to keep it in good condition.
If it starts getting really sunny and dry, you can reduce the cutting frequency to every 2-3 weeks. This will prevent you from damaging a dry lawn, but always remember to water it during hot spells.
- Autumn/Fall – You normally get as much rainfall as you do in spring, only this is countered by a lack of sun. Also, this is the season when your grass starts to slow down its growth cycle. It won’t spring up as much, so you can afford to wait between 2-4 weeks for optimal mowing.
On that note, you’ve come to the end of this lawn mowing frequency guide. You can see it’s not as straightforward as it seems. Telling you to mow your lawn “little and often” doesn’t paint the full picture. Use this as a resource to understand how often you should mow the lawn based on the seasons and the type of mower you use.
