How To Adjust Your Lawn Mower's Blades For The Healthiest Grass

When you want to mow your lawn more efficiently and help your grass grow stronger, you can take several steps. One is using sharp mower blades to create clean cuts that allow the grass blades to better resist disease and pests. Another is to mow grass when it's dry, as damp grass may damage the mower and form clumps in the lawn. You may also want to adjust the blade heights while mowing, depending on the conditions. One of the most common reasons to adjust blade height while mowing to encourage healthier grass is because some areas of the yard may be in regular shade while other areas receive a lot of sun. The right length to mow your lawn is about 3 inches or higher (as a general rule). More specifically, cool-season grasses should be cut at up to 4 inches in height, while warm-season grasses should be cut at up to 2 ½ inches in height. If you have a mixture of grasses, use the 3-inch general rule.

In areas that are primarily shady, you should adjust the mower blades to leave the grass ½ to 1 inch taller than you would in sunny areas. For example, cut at 3 ½ or 4 inches of height in full shade and 3 inches in full sun. By leaving a little more of the blade intact in the shady area, you give it more surface area for capturing the limited sunlight. Mowing shady areas too low, on the other hand, could cause the turf to thin out while inhibiting growth.

You should adjust the height of your mower blade based on the season in which you're mowing to maintain the healthiest grass. Lawns undergo the most stress during summer, as heat and a lack of moisture can weaken the grass and give weeds a chance to sprout. Most people use their lawns for activities more often in the summer than during other seasons, meaning the grass blades experience stress from extra foot traffic, too.

To account for this stress and to strengthen the grass, you should be careful to mow your lawn at the proper height in the summer. If you normally mow the grass at 3 inches of height in spring, you should raise the mower blades to 3 ½ inches in summer to give it the best chance at remaining healthy. By autumn, you can return to a 3-inch cutting height.

Having longer grass blades in summer gives them extra protection from summer heat and reduces the amount of water that evaporates from the soil of the yard. Additionally, longer grass blades encourage deeper root growth, which helps the blades pull water from the soil more efficiently. Longer grass blades create a little more shade against the soil in the lawn, which should inhibit weed growth. If less sun reaches the ground with weed seeds in place, you'll reduce the chances of them sprouting.

If you have grubs in your lawn, they may eat the roots of the grass and leave you with patches of dead, brown turf. Large numbers of grubs could also cause birds, raccoons, and skunks to dig in the yard, causing even more damage. You can use chemical pesticides to kill the grubs and eliminate the problem. However, you might want to avoid these because they're often dangerous for pets and young children. Additionally, these insecticides may harm beneficial insects, like bees or butterflies, potentially leaving homeowners looking for another solution. If that's the case, raising your mowing height could be an effective part of a safer integrated approach.

Grubs are active in early spring (this is when the pests hatch and begin feeding on the roots of the grass blades) and in early autumn, when the mature grubs eat more of the roots. One way to inhibit grub growth while using less or no pesticide is by adjusting your lawn mower's blade height and allowing the grass to grow taller. Letting the lawn's grass blades remain longer during the early autumn should encourage longer roots and a larger root mass, which means grubs will do less overall damage and the grass plants can recover better from any damage that occurs. A mowing height of at least 3 ½ inches should give the grass the best chance at avoiding and surviving damage from grubs.