One of the greatest wastes we see in this country every day comes from our own lawns. How many of us collect our lawn clippings time we mow our lawns and throw them into the bin? Most of us? Many of us? Whatever the answer is we can say that it’s too many of us. So just what is the problem with throwing lawn clippings into the bin, and how are we supposed to dispose of our lawn clippings if not in the bin?
Lawn clippings are obviously 100% bio-degradable, and they are full of Nitrogen too, a major nutrient that all lawns and plants require to survive and for their health. Being organic natural material, lawn clippings will also break down completely to feed our soils.
The truth is that most of us are wasting a highly valuable resource every time we mow our lawns, as we’ve been trained over generations to think of lawn clippings as trash, when in fact they are treasure. So how can we utilise this treasure for our own benefit on our own properties, for our own lawn’s health?
Mulch mowing. And in fact mulch mowing is so good for our lawn’s health that we should all being mowing our lawns this way as default practice in Australia, putting away our lawn mower catchers for good.
Mulch Lawn Mowing
Mulch mowing is done either with a dedicated mulching lawn mower, or when we insert the mulching plug into the rear chute of our lawn mower. Almost every rotary lawn mower sold today will come with a mulching plug, so if we have a modern lawn mower then we have a mulching plug to use, and we can mulch mow our lawns.
A mulching mower or mower with a mulching plug inserted will force lawn clippings to circulate more times through the mower blades than if we just caught the clippings in the catcher. This process will then finely chop up the lawn clippings and leave them on top of the lawn, and many of these particles will be deposited into the thatch layer by the fan force of the spinning blades.
We then mow the lawn as per usual, with no changes needed.
Why Mulch Mowing Works
Over the life of the lawn, we will be constantly trickle feeding the lawn with natural Nitrogen for its health, as well as feeding the lawn soil with a constant supply of organic matter which will break down continuously over years to keep improving the lawn soil by leaps and bounds.
Mulch mowing is the single biggest ongoing lawn improvement we can give to our lawns over the life of our lawns, and it doesn’t cost us a cent.
Nitrogen is of course the major nutrient in fertilisers, and with mulch mowing we are giving our lawns a continuous trickle feed of Nitrogen from it’s own lawn clippings, at zero cost to us.
Mulch mowing is so beneficial to our lawns and lawn soils, that this should be standard practice for all lawn mowing in this country, excluding only a few exceptions.
Is Mulch Mowing Messy
Mulch mowing a lawn can often not even appear as though mulch mowing has been done, it really does depend on how often we are mowing our lawns, how much lawn leaf is being mulched at each mowing, and the type of lawn mower being used, as different brands and models of lawn mowers will all produce varying results.
The only time we may get a more messy finish to our lawns when mulch mowing is when we have left the lawn to grow too long in-between cuts, and there are just too many lawn clippings being forced through the mower blades at once, and too many clippings being left on the lawn.
For a regularly mowed lawn though, little to no difference should be visible after cutting, if we do see some clippings on the lawn after mowing, then these should break down and dissipate within a few days.
Though in reality, we all in this modern world have grown into a new wrong set of thinking when it comes to our lawns and gardens, that every millimetre has to be perfect and exact and preened and manicured. Many of us need to break these thinking habits, and understand once more that our gardens are living and breathing organisms, imperfect by nature, and it is in these imperfections in nature that we find that that is how nature really was designed to work all along, to be imperfect, to decay, not to be preened, not to be cleaned, but to entirely self sustain itself.
Obviously we may find that the paths around the lawn may be a little messy if we mulch mow, but a quick sweep with the broom or grabbing an inexpensive blower at the hardware store will quickly clean this up.
Mulch Mowing With Self Propelled Lawn Mowers
This sub-section is only relevant to those of us with self propelled lawn mowers which have gearboxes that give us options to change the travel speed of the mower.
If we are mulch mowing lawns with a self propelled lawn mower, then it can be wise to decrease the travel speed of the mower on such lawns. For example, if we normally mow at number 3 travel speed, then we would reduce the speed to number 2 when mulch mowing.
We slow down the travel speed of the mower so that the grass clippings can go through the blades more often before being deposited back into the lawn sward. The lawn clippings are then chopped up more finely, leaving a cleaner finish to the lawn after mowing is completed.
Exceptions To Mulch Mowing
Mulch mowing will not be suitable at all times or for all lawns.
To mulch mow, we really do need to be mowing our lawns regularly for the very best results.
Lawns which have been sprayed with weed killers or pesticides should have clippings caught and thrown into the bin for about a month after spraying.
We can mulch mow our lawns after fertilising a week or so prior, and it is highly recommended to mulch mow lawns that have been fertilised with slow release fertilisers, as catching while mowing lawns which still have little granules of fertiliser in the thatch layer, will result in us vacuuming up that fertiliser only to throw it into the bin.
Lawns that grow quickly like old style common Kikuyu, or lawns which have grown quite a lot since the last lawn mowing, should also not be mulch mowed, but the clippings caught. Firstly the lawn will be quite the mess after mowing an overgrown lawn, and secondly there will be just too many lawn clippings which have not been finely chopped up, all sitting on top of the lawn at once, and these will take far too long to decompose, and may cause us other lawn problems.
Lawns with weeds that are in seed should not be mulch mowed, as all we’d be doing is redepositing more weed seeds into our soils, making more weeds.
Buffalo lawns may possibly be a problem in some circumstances, but mostly they too should be absolutely fine to mulch mow too. The only reason we may find a problem with mulch mowing Buffalo grass is if the thatch layer is already quite thick and raised, and that we may create a quite unsightly lawn while also thickening up the thatch layer further should we mulch mow. Buffalo growing in partial shade should not be a problem due to less thatch, while full sun growing Buffalo lawns do thatch up more and may be a problem for mulch mowing. Only you can decide what is best practice for your own Buffalo lawn, dependent on how it’s growing.
Finally…
We may find that if we have a healthy lawn that the mulched clippings we produce from mulch mowing may accumulate on our lawns over time. Whereby too many clippings from a healthy lawn are being produced, even if we mow regularly to match the growth rates of the turf. What’s happening here is that the mulched clippings are too many and are taking too long to decompose. We then start noticing a problem of these clippings just accumulating.
In these rare cases it would be wise to stop mulch mowing for a period of time, a month to 3 months depending on how the lawn sward is looking and how it is disposing of the excess clippings. And if this is to be a regular problem for us due to lawn type, growth rates, decomposition rates of the clippings etc, we would then adjust our mulch mowing to perhaps taking turns to mulch mow and then catch on the next mowing, and to throw the caught clippings into the garden beds instead. That way we’re reducing the amount of mulched clippings on our lawns, allowing enough time for decomposition, as well as feeding our garden beds too.
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