When you mow your lawn, you might be tempted to take the grass clippings and bag them up. They don’t belong on the curb to be picked up by the garbage men. Lawn mulching grass clippings is a better alternative for your lawn. Experts say that lawn mulching is one of the best ways to keep a low-maintenance, healthy lawn. Not only is it free but it’s also great for the environment. How? Well, mulching can help you reduce your family’s contribution to landfill waste.
What exactly is lawn mulching?
Mulch is any material that is placed to insulate the soil of a bed, plant or turf. Mulching protects a plant’s moisture and enriches the soil with nutrients as it decomposes, especially if it’s organic. Organic mulch can be in many forms such as leaves, peat, bark and grass clippings. Most people think of mulch as the dyed wood chips that are used in landscape beds and although the principal is the same lawn mulching is where you use the clippings from mowing to insulate your lawn.
What should you try to get the best results from mulch made from grass clippings?
You should always practice the 1/3 rule when mowing your lawn. You should never cut more than 1/3 of the blade. This will avoid clippings accumulating on the surface of your lawn mower where they don’t belong. It will improve the productivity of your mower because cutting more can bog the lawn mower down with clippings.
You should also consider getting a mulching mower. A mulching mower has a mulching blade that attempts to cause clippings to fly upwards into the mowing deck so they are cut again by the blade, making them small enough to be beneficial to the lawn.
A mulching mower also has a deck without a discharge location or a cover on the discharge location. It keeps the clippings inside the deck to get chopped up smaller and smaller. Since the blade is doing so much cutting, a mulching mower’s blade spins faster than a regular mower. You’ll need to watch the blade to make sure it stays sharp.
Benefits of lawn mulching
The primary benefit of lawn mulching is the return of nutrients to the lawn. This allows your grass to grow healthy and thick. It will also keep the soil moist and the temperature down.
Whatever your reasons for mulching, it’s a worthwhile endeavor. Mulching can help your lawn grow lush and strong. If you have any questions about this type of mulching, give Emerald Lawns a call at 512-990-2199.
