SolveYourProblem
Lawn Care Article Series
Practical
Tips For The Perfect Lawn
Lawn
Clippings: To Bag or Not to Bag?
One of the most basic and possibly mundane
actions you have to perform on your lawn is to mow it. Every
Saturday or Sunday you fire up the lawn mower, push it out
into the yard, and begin the routine: push down, back, down,
empty the bag, and repeat. Do you have to empty the bag, though?
Do you have to bag the clippings at all? The topic is one that
is debated on cul-de-sacs across America. The truth is that
there is a time to bag your clippings and a time not to bag
them. You can avoid a lot of the time consuming work of bagging
and emptying by educating yourself on the scientific reasoning
behind mulching, while still keeping in mind that there are
good times to bag your clippings.
You are already thinking that mulching or leaving clippings
is bad for your lawn because it contributes to thatch. That
is actually not true. Thatch, for the most part, is made up
of dead or dying roots, leaves, and other slow-decomposing
organic matter, but not grass. Your lawn clippings actually
decompose at a fairly rapid rate, and will actually make your
lawn more durable.
Clippings contain many of the same nutrients contained in
the fertilizers you buy at the local gardening center. For
every bag of clippings you haul away from your yard, you are
taking with it a quarter pound of organic nitrogen. Now, how
much do you pay for organic nitrogen for your lawn? By simply
mulching your clippings back into the lawn, you can save significantly
on your fertilization costs. Imagine the money you would save
if you just fertilized one less time per year.
Leaving
your lawn clippings in the grass will also help to
create a cushion under your lawn surface that is healthier
than the thatch, but is enough to help maintain the lawns durability.
The clippings will also help to keep your soil temperatures
down and moisture in the soil where your grass can actually
make use of it.
There
are a lot of benefits to leaving your clippings in your
lawn, or mulching them down, but there are actually reasons
to bag your clippings from time to time as well. The most notable
time is if you let the lawn get away from you. Maybe you had
to go out of town and let it go a week longer than you should
have, got busy and didn’t get to it, or just were feeling lazy
one week. No matter what the reason may be, if you are cutting
more than an inch off of your lawn, you are creating fairly
large clippings. Large clippings of an inch or more may have
trouble getting between the blades in your lawn and down to
the soil where they can do any good. In that case, bag the
clippings. You can still use them in a compost pile or for
fertilizing other plants on your property, though. Just keep
in mind that if your lawn has been recently treated with chemicals,
that you should wait through two cuttings before using the
clippings on any other plants.
The
other reason to bag your clippings would be if you happen
to have dandelions in your yard and they have gone to seed.
In a perfect world, you would never have dandelions growing
in your yard, but the truth is that not everyone has the time
or desire to do what is necessary to keep them out completely.
If you were to leave them in after going to seed and mowing
them, you will, however, end up with many more dandelions than
you had in the first place.
Traditionally, lawn clippings have been bagged and set out
with the trash collection each week. However, the trend is
certainly moving away from the bagging of lawn clippings. By
leaving the clippings in the lawn, scientists have found that
the clippings can reduce water evaporation, reduce lawn weary
by adding a cushion, and create healthier grass by giving nutrients
and maintaining cooler temperatures in the soil through hot
summer days. By leaving your clippings in, except for in certain
circumstances, you will be able to create a more self-maintaining
lawn and save yourself money at the same time. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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