Mowing frequency: How often should your lawn be mowed?
A question I get asked alot is can you mow my yard every other week or every week? The answer to this question in short is find a lawn professional you can trust, but the circumstances when to mow more or less will be discussed.
The conditions that require more frequent mowing are: direct sunlight, temperatures above or around 80-100 degrees for warm season grasses, frequent rain, frequent irrigation, fertilization, and grass type.
St. Augustine grass grows the fastest of all southern turf grasses, and waiting to long in-between services can stress or kill St. Augustine. Bermuda grass is also a rapid grower, and I do not service St. Augustine or Bermuda grass types on a bi-weekly basis except in rare circumstances.
What are the conditions when lawns need less mowing? Low rain fall, lack of irrigation, low temperatures, shade, drought stress, domancy, and lack of nutrients are all factors that decrease how often your lawn needs to be mowed. The lawn that grows slow should be cut less. Thus, these types of lawns may qualify for bi-weekly service.
Common Florida grasses (1 of 2)
Bahia grass is most commonly known by its V shaped seed pods. It is used for feed as it yields impressive protein values for cattle. It does excellent during drought. It is known to look “dead” or dormant for months, and we get a few rains and it turns green and grows like crazy.
This grass is a vertical grower (rhizomes) and does not have much horizontal (stolon) growing capabilities. Bahia needs the least maintenance of all grasses discussed, but it needs extra help with weed control.
There are two main types used residentially Argentine and Pensacola. Argentine Bahia is generally more desirable. The wider blades of argintine bahia resemble St. Augustine, and it has less seed heads.
Bermuda grass is most commonly known by golfers and athletes. It is used most frequently for golf courses, baseball fields, and recreation fields. It is a horizontal growing grass. This means it repairs itself and has a lot less weed problems. There are a lot more choices of herbicides for this type of grass too. Bermuda grass is like a mid-distance swimmer; it grows steadily out and paces itself. Its biggest weakness in Florida is probably fungus.
Common Bermuda grass is usually considered a weed. It grows quickly and out of nowhere, and its stringy and ugly. Once you have common Bermuda it’s very difficult to get rid of.
Hybrid Bermuda grass is more desirable. It looks smooth, consistent, soft, and feels great to walk on bare footed. The blades of grass are very fine and can even be dark blueish green in color. Hybrid Bermuda grass can also be mowed very low like a golf course.
Celibration Bermuda is a type of hybrid Lakeland Lawn Services offers. Its dark blueish green, great in high traffic areas, and does well during drought.
The right height to mow your grass!
In order to know the height at which your lawn should be cut depends on a few factors. Most importantly you have to consider the turf type. Next it greatly depends on what season of the year it is, rain fall, and if you fertilize your lawn. As a general rule the longer you let turf grow the deeper the roots. When in doubt let it grow out especially during drought.
Here in Florida we have a few main grass types. The ones of focus will be Bahia, Bermuda, Zyosia, and St. Augustine since these are the most common types of turf in Florida. -St. Augustine likes to be cut at 3.5”-5”. -Bahia likes to be cut between 3”-4.5”. -Bermuda likes to be cut between 1.5”-3.5”. -Zyosia likes about 1.5”-3”.
Conditions to leave turf longer: during warm season and summer when grass is growing fast, during fertilizing, consistent watering, consistent rainfall, weed prevention, drought
Conditions to cut turf shorter: during cool season (spring & fall), for Bermuda grass scalp in spring, to remove tips of fungal infected blades of grass and bagging,
What not to do. Scalp or mow grass down to the dirt hoping that because you mow so low you can wait longer in between mow times. All this does is weakens and eventually kills the good grass and lets weeds grow in! Effectively making you mow more frequently, because the weeds grow faster.
The longer the grass grows it tends to choke the weeds out, kind of like a mature forest does with tall trees that chokes out undergrowth. However, you don’t want to let the grass grow really long then cut it really short. As a general rule of thumb I try not to cut off more than 1/3 of total blade length off at once. Furthermore, longer grass has longer roots, and this has multiple advantages from drought resistance to disease prevention.
Getting your mower/zero turn unstuck from the mud.
Lakeland is located just south of the green swamp. There are many low land areas around here, and I get my mower stuck bad 1-2 times per year. This is very frustrating when I’m mowing a client’s lawn, because I don’t want to cause further damage to their lawn and it decreases my productivity.
The best way to fix this is to prevent getting stuck in the first place. Always check the area in question before you mow. Is it a known wet spot? Is it mostly bare soil? Does the known wet spot have shallow rooted grass or good deep rooted grass? Bare soil or mud that tends to be slippery has an extremely high probability you will get stuck! If the wet area is covered in deep rooted grass you have a better chance of not getting stuck than if its shallow rooted grass.
Based on these questions I will mow it or not. For my current customers I pretty much don’t have a whole lot of problems. However, when I get a new customer this can get tricky. I have also slipped down a slope on the side of a pond and got stuck after heavy rain as well. I typically never slide there. You never know.
But once you get stuck and its inevitable you have a couple options. You can try to pull your mower out with a truck or another mower and some good heavy duty arborist rope. I always like to use rope just in case you have backlash. You don’t want a chain becoming a 100+ mph projectile. This option works well if the stuck mower has some dry areas around it and it’s safe to get another vehicle or mower in there. Just make sure you turn the hydros off on your mower.
The other option is to get some of these mats I have included in the pictures. The ones have say Dri-Dek but they seem real similar to mats that you would see on a natatorium floor, water park locker room, or pool locker room. They also sell similar mats on amazon called tire traction mats. The ones on amazon are for cars, but the ones I have work well for mowers.
These mats are a life saver. Just put them under the tire(s) that are stuck in the direction you want to go, and work the tire(s) up onto the mats. Once you get the tire on the mat then you can add another matt when it runs out, if you have two. Then when that one runs out add the other matt the wheel was just on, repeat. After this all you have to do is stay off of concrete until you hose everything off. Then I will go and repair the ruts as best as possible.
I do not carry a push mower. But another option that works for me is to have water proof boots, and I will just weed eat these wet areas so long as they are not to big.
Weed killer for Bahia, Bermudagrass, and Zyosia.
A question I frequently get asked is what weed is this and how do I get rid of it? The first question you have to figure out is what type of grass do I have. If you have St. Augustine, atrazine based products work well. They are generally in purple bags at Lowes and Home Depot.
However, the product discussed here is "Sta-Green" and its found at Lowes for under $15. It is safe for zyosia, Bermuda grass, and Bahia, and it kills most clovers and most weeds. It doesn't kill crabgrass effectively. Always read the label. It covers 7,500sf. Wear gloves, Boots, and pants.
Connect the bottle of sta green to the water hose. Pull hose to furthest distance away in your yard, turn Nozzle on, and work your way back the same direction you just came from as you spray, but in straight lines. Pay attention to how wide the spray is coming out. Walk in straight lines and hold the bottle in one hand and hose in the other AND WALK AT AN EVEN PACE as you spray. When you reach the border of your property turn Nozzle off. Do a 180 and take one wide step to left or right ( as wide as the spray is coming out), and turn sprayer back on and repeat like you would if you were push mowing your yard. Cover the entire yard evenly.
If you have a 1/4 bottle of product left in bottle after you cover the whole yard that's okay. If you have half or more left after covering the whole yard once (and your yard us 7500sf) then cover the whole yard again.
Spray as early in the morning as possible, so that way it will fully dry on the plants and in soil. Don't spray before a big rain is predicted. You should do this 1-3X per year spring, early summer,, and early fall. Read the label for the maximum amount you can use per year.
If you have questions and want to see a video on the subject check out "Lawn Care Nut" or "GCI turf" on YouTube. Both of them always have solid Lawn advice.
Lawn Care nut: https://youtu.be/OekdXeRj7yY
GCI Turf: https://youtu.be/6DmYDmOkVVI
If you want a good local spray company call Right Guys: 863-242-3937
A good weed identification app is Picture This, see picture below. The picture of the weed below is crabgrass in bermudagrass.
