Last Updated on December 26, 2023 by Brian Beck
So this is going to be a funny little post. Hopefully by the time you’re done with this article you’re going to get a little taste of history, horticulture, economics, logic and relief. This has to do with bagging your lawn. We’re going to answer that question whether or not you need to do it.
Some people view bagging the lawn as not only necessary but required, this is far from the truth. While there are several motivations for wanting to do so, the fundamental reason being that there are clippings left over from mowing the lawn that looks unsightly. This has everything to do with the mower capabilities and the frequency of the cut. But before I get ahead of myself let me back up and time warp back into the past so you can see where this silliness originated.
It’s 1948, suburban America is taking off like wildfire and the factories that once produced bombers, tanks and jeeps once again return to making consumer goods for the American public who is flush with cash after winning the war in winning the global economy. Along with a little house with a white picket fence comes with it a lawn both front and back and guess what the need to cut it with something. While mechanized gas burning lawnmowers had been invented sometime before in England the American market was primed and ready for product that would make their lives more simple. With the expansion of the industrial might of the United States came with it the ubiquitous gas powered lawnmower. And guess who got to use it for the first time? Dad, and only dad got to put his hands on the new contraption. And guess when dad had time to cut the lawn? On the weekend, typically a Saturday. I believe the paradigm of cutting the yard once per week originated with this historical sequence of lawn mechanization. I’d be willing to bet that it was several years or a better part of a decade before the kids were old enough to push the lawnmower and dad got tired of mowing the lawn, back when teenagers did any work at all. This event in history set the tone for decades of misery for the lawn care provider.
Anyone who is anyone that knows anything about lawn care knows that to truly have a healthy lawn you have to cut it more than once per week. For most people and most companies this is an economic impossibility, logistical nightmare and impractical with most people’s schedules. So, we resort to cutting once per week and are left with the dilemma of what to do when we mow the grass, look back and see grass clippings on the lawn right after we hit it with that shiny brand-new lawnmower with a razor-sharp blade. So what is the problem? If it isn’t obvious by now it should be. We are exceeding the capabilities of the mower, even the best mower. We typically teach our personnel in such cases to pivot 45° and cut the lawn a second time in such instances which typically eliminates this problem and digest the grass clippings to a point where they’re not noticeable.
Some people have two back there lawn and have developed a neurosis around doing so. Let me explain to you why you should not bag. A turf lawn will produce approximately 2 pounds of nitrogen for every 1000 ft.² that is free fertilizer. While not all of this will get into the soil it is better to have it returned back into the lawn rather than going to a landfill. If the right technique is used you can avoid ever having to bag your lawn again. This will return both nitrogen and the other elements and that expended blade of grass back into the soil that will serve as nutrition for the lawn. But what about thatch you say? Thatch has nothing to do with grass clippings and to confuse the two is like conflating your scalp with your feet, they are two very different items and grass anatomy. Thatch is technically defined as the dead root growth of the lawn which is normally present but more often because of the lack of biology too thick and usually gets lumped in with group grass clippings as most people see the dead and exfoliated grass blade whenever they power rake or detach there lawn. Grass clippings are grass clippings and if you have too many it simply means that you are not mowing the lawn frequently enough. Whenever you cut the lawn in the traditional sense you should never cut more than one third of the grass blade off as you will cause a predictable amount of stress in the grass plant every time you cut it.
So what is this frequency thing that you keep referring to? As I mentioned before the more you cut the grass the healthier it becomes as you are lessening the stress that you’re putting into the plant. For every time interval that you use to cut the lawn is the same amount of time that it takes for the lawn to recover from that cutting. I truly hope that you’re not cutting the lawn every two weeks because this is a nightmare for the restructure and you are just praying for death in the future to come, so don’t ever cut the yard every other week it’s a big no-no. Now getting back to logic reason and science, what’s the big reason for cutting the are more frequently? Not only do you diminish the presence of grass clippings but you put a huge amount of health back into the plant by eliminating stress. The more often you cut your yard the easier it becomes and the healthier your lawn becomes.
Now to jump into the future a long ways away from the 1940s, let’s talk about automation. Now most people have no idea that robotic mowing has been not only a viable industry but a multibillion-dollar global concern that is emerging and will eventually replace the gas powered business model. The prospect of having your grass cut in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping is a foreign concept to most people but there’s something even more important for the grass. Not only does the grass look significantly better but it is significantly healthier. When you cut a lawn every single day, which is financially impossible and physically impractical for everybody, your lawn gets elevated into a new reality of existence. You start to experience things like a complete absence of weeds, the complete absence of grass clippings and a lawn that literally looks like a green carpet. And with the advent of new and recent technology added into robotic mowers for those people who insist on striping there lawn, guess what, the robotic mowers can also mowing patterns.
So there you go there is my historical lesson embedded with some horticultural truth, logic, wisdom and common sense. The moral of the story: mow your lawn as often as possible, don’t bag and get a robotic lawnmower. Everything is about to change. The experience of mowing the lawn and owning a lawn is going to get much better from here on out, I guarantee it.