How frequently should you mow your lawn?

as infrequently as I can. The back garden gets mowed once a month or less. The front about once every 3 weeks... on the highest setting to keep the sun at bay.

 

every 4 days in the spring, every 3 weeks after it turns brown in July.

 

At one time I paid one of the many neighbor kids $20 bucks to mow it once in a while. Apparently they've now all decided that mowing a lawn is worth $40 or $50 so that option is out.

I would try to get the Feds to investigate them for price fixing but then I'm afraid that they'd either get the NLRB to come nail me for bad workplace practices (making them mow in the heat) or the EPA to get me for that endangered species habitat that I'm ruining in the tall grass.

 

I never mow the lawn... Jesus does it.

No really, I don't mow the lawn. The front yard is mostly bushes, and gets trimmed once a season, and the back is my "wildlife refuge."

 

this made me laugh out loud!

 

Well there's your problem: you water it? That's only encouraging growth, LOL.

I've been mowing ours maybe every third week, whenever it looks longish. Don't feed or water it, though it's been a pretty damp "summer" to date around here.

BTW, just mowing, even with electric mower, is creating air "pollution", ie: signficantly changing the air composition in the vicinity. That "newly mown" smell, from a yard's worth of clipped grass, is something, I forget what, but it's somewhat detrimental.

 

The life blood of maimed plants....

 

I pretty much understand now why we're so obsessed with lawns, especially uniform height, semi weedfree ones:

Was watching some big horses at a petting farm. One was nose down in the few bits of green he could find. His snout and teeth efficiently vacuum up and snip off foliage. The broadleaf weeds tend to be caught, and the slim, tenacious grass blades remain, at least those below the reach of his teeth.

Very similar to clip-on ties: a vestige of a byegone era, but it's hard to let go.

We were walking back from beach to car in pricey west side Kitsalino neighbourhood last weekend: noticed lots of front yards breaking out of the tradional lawn. Some were just neglected, gone to moss, with lots of plantings, sculptures, what have you. One row of townhouses just used a spread of lemon-sized stones, interspersed with plantings etcetera. Actually looked pretty good.

 

the smell of freshly mown grass, does it get any better than that?

 

when the wife says it needs it

 

I have a love/hate relationship with that. Love the smell, hate the allergy effect

 

well said.

 

I knew they had identified the smell but didn't realize that it is such a high source of VOCs.. this paper estimates ~20% of VOC emissions in an urban area are from grass cutting.

http://northcountrynotes.org/jason-rohrer/natureOnTrial/cut_grass_pollution.pdf

 

No lawn to mow here. The front garden's just about done - another blueberry bush to plant this afternoon, and I'm thinking of a watering system (other than the current system of me standing there with the hose, I mean)

The back 40 will have to wait for the house painting to be done, but the plans are for more fruit and vegetables, not lawn. I'll keep the antique push mower as a conversation piece, or maybe 'yard art'.

 

You know if you park one of your cars in your yard, there will be no grass under it soon.


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As someone said earlier, once a week in the spring, less often as summer moves along.

 

A little gas and a match always takes care of having to mow.

DBCassidy