Too Much, Too Little
It seems like a basic question, but when I talk with people about their grass, they typically aren’t sure what a 1-inch or 3-inch blade of grass looks like. Just in terms of math, 3 inches is three times the height of 1 inch…that seems simple enough…but does 3 inches look bad? If your yard were only cut to a 3-inch height, would it look like a jungle or an abandoned lot or a house in foreclosure?
All lawnmowers have settings for different blade heights. The setting you have your blade will determine just how tall or short your grass is. To help illustrate how different settings makes your grass actually look, I recently took photos of my lawn to show you.
The image below shows the same strips but from the opposite direction.
The Backyard
In my backyard, I’ve really let my grass grow tall. I reseeded the entire backyard last year, and I want to give it time early this season to get deep roots and reseed naturally. I mowed two different settings with the grass. In the image below, I’ve labeled the setting height.
Growing Back
When you mow at a higher setting (say at 3 ¼”), you can still wait two weeks to mow it again without it starting to look unkempt. If you wait three weeks, it’ll start to look a little out of hand. Even so, cutting your grass every two weeks mean you save on water and eliminate the need for fertilizers and pesticides. Less chemicals equals healthier grass, plus your soil will get healthier too. Healthier soil means even healthier grass…and you guessed it, even healthier grass equals even healthier soil. You will see a huge improvement in how your grass looks throughout the Spring and Summer even when it's hot and dry. Taking the Yard Detox Challenge sets your yard on a cyclical path for a more and more sustainable approach to lawn care. You save money if you have a lawn care service. If you cut your own grass, you save time…which is money in it’s own way.