A well-looked-after lawn can be the centrepiece of your garden, helping to elevate the outdoor space. Although achieving the perfect lawn can be difficult, that doesn’t mean it has to be done by a professional gardener (we do recommend that you hire one if you don't know what you're doing, or don't have the time or the right tools).
In this short Knowledge Centre article, we’ve listed 8 of the common mowing tips and techniques professional gardeners use to maintain a healthy and lush lawn, tips and techniques that you can also use to create the same stunning effect.
Professional gardeners will usually invest in high-quality lawnmowers, something you should also aim to do. You don’t need to spend thousands, but a decent mower will go a long way to helping you achieve the perfect cut.
Choose either a good hover mower, especially for smaller town gardens, a decent rotary mower with a grass collector, or for the bigger garden with a lot of lawn to mow, you could opt for a petrol-powered ride-on mower.
Sharp mower blades are crucial in giving your lawn a decent cut. If the blades of your mower are dull they’ll tear the grass instead of cutting it clean, which can result in leaving the grass susceptible to certain diseases.
A professional gardener or lawn keeper will sharpen their mower blades regularly, typically after every 20-25 hours of use to maintain that sharp and precise cut the grass requires to stay healthy and look great.
The height at which you mow your grass plays a significant role in the health of the lawn and its appearance. This is because when cut at the right height, deeper root growth is encouraged, helping the grass to withstand stress.
As professional gardeners, we’d recommend sticking to the standard one-third rule and setting your lawnmower's maximum cutting height to no more than one-third of the grass’s total height.
To avoid creating ruts and soil compaction, professional gardeners tend to alternate their mowing patterns. In practice, this means mowing in a horizontal pattern one week and the next week vertical.
The reason for this changing of mowing patterns is also to help prevent the grass from leaning too much in one direction, and also to promote healthy growth, especially for those looking to create a show lawn or a lawn bowl surface.
A professional gardener will tend to avoid mowing in wet conditions, as it can damage the grass and lead to uneven cuts. So, if it is raining, or has been recently, wait until a drier day before getting the lawn mower out. That’s not to say you couldn’t mow in slightly wet conditions, but as a rule, the drier the better, if only to make the job cleaner, and to avoid compaction or the dreaded Wellington boot marks in the topsoil.
Once you’ve mowed, don’t be in too much of a rush to dump the grass clippings, as they’re great as a natural fertiliser, or to be used as mulch for flower beds, to protect the soil from frost etc., and to help suppress weeds.
Some professional gardeners opt for ‘grasscycling’, which is the process of leaving fresh grass clippings on the lawn to act as natural grass food, and to protect the lawn from frost or sco
To achieve that professional and polished look for your lawn, don’t forget to edge it after mowing. Use a manual or powered edger to create clean, defined borders between your lawn, garden beds and walkways.
Two other benefits of edging your lawn, include helping to reduce weed growth, especially weeds that could distort the lawn's shape, and controlling water run-off, particularly if you have slopes where water might run off and collect in puddles.
When mowing a lawn, any good professional gardener will always prioritize safety. That means wearing eye protection and protective clothing, not touching mower blades until the power is disconnected, and acting responsibly with petrol.
Posted by Culverhouse Gardens
