When do you start and stop mowing the grass where you live?

[JasperFrank]

Every year is different in the PNW. First mow, usually in mid-April. This can get delayed till mid-May if we have off and on rain, with bright sunny days in between. The grass has to get first cut by the end of May, even if its still wet, otherwise it gets too tall for even the bush hog to deal with- it just gets knocked over otherwise and not cut. I'll do another fine cut with the lawn tractor, sometime in late June.
The past few years, I'll try to get a cut in by June, when The Great Spigot In The Sky shuts off for good, till the end of September, all the grass is drying out by then. And we can't mow anyway due to fire restrictions, which last year, happened way too early.
If its a mild winter, with no snow, I try to get ahead of it in February.
Very different types of ground cover, establish and dominate every year. Some years its tall grasses that take over, and some years its low stuff like clover and some other low growing, thick, non-grass plant I haven't identified yet, that grows sideways, almost vine like, and is very difficult to cut: Some years, it is all butter cups. This year, after importing an entire new cover soil, to groom the lawns; its all clover.
Attempting to control this, with expensive mono-seeding, of the allowed types of grass, has never worked, and looking back at all the grass seed I've bought and spread, it was a waste of money and time. The lawns are going to do what ever they are going to do and every year, it is different.

 

[OldMcDonald]

Genuine question.....Why do you all have lawns?

I suppose I am different in that I have farmed around the world for 60 odd years and never seen the point in growing grass unless it is to be eaten by livestock. How much money would I have spent in, say, 65 years, of cutting even a quarter acre of grass? Then what would I do with the cuttings?

At the age of 77 I decided it was time to retire and sold my farm in Portugal, buying a house on Orkney Mainland. Look it up if necessary.

It was almost all lawn which I am in the process of changing to vegetable growing areas. Barely a worm to be seen because previous owners did not want worm casts on their lawns, so presumably poisoned them.

Consider roducing more of your own food, maybe selling surplus to your lawn growing neighbours? Or just give it away and be a "nice guy". Generosity will repay itself.

 

[ultrarunner]

We use lawn clippings for the chickens and rabbits...

The chickens love fresh lawn clippings...

 

[GeneV]

Genuine question.....Why do you all have lawns?

I suppose I am different in that I have farmed around the world for 60 odd years and never seen the point in growing grass unless it is to be eaten by livestock. How much money would I have spent in, say, 65 years, of cutting even a quarter acre of grass? Then what would I do with the cuttings?

At the age of 77 I decided it was time to retire and sold my farm in Portugal, buying a house on Orkney Mainland. Look it up if necessary.

It was almost all lawn which I am in the process of changing to vegetable growing areas. Barely a worm to be seen because previous owners did not want worm casts on their lawns, so presumably poisoned them.

Consider roducing more of your own food, maybe selling surplus to your lawn growing neighbours? Or just give it away and be a "nice guy". Generosity will repay itself.

Yeh, lawns are a cultural thing here in the US. It is kinda stupid to invest all this time and money...keeping that grass as weed-free as possible, all that mowing, edging, all that stuff. But, we just do it, it's sort of a religion.

 

[hube2]

Genuine question.....Why do you all have lawns?

Because if I didn't have grass I'd have a mud hole and since I'm on a hill my house would likely slide into the street. It's not really lawn though, it's an old hay field. If I let it grow the bugs would eat you alive and unlike the people that had your property before you I leave the bugs alone as long as they don't get out of hand, and I love worms, also toads and snakes and bees and other critters that keep my garden and lawn healthy. I seriously do not have the energy to turn 1.5 acres into garden, and that would just bring be back around to having a mud hole sliding into the street.

 

[michael.white]

I cut the field around the house (not a lawn) five times a year here in the Texas Hill Country. Usually April, May, June, September, October, depending on if and when we get rain. This year was a bit of a wet summer so I cut in August and October, but it always seems to be five. It takes up the whole day but at least it's only five days a year. Neighbor has cows and goats and doesn't own a machine that cuts grass.

 

[two_bit_score]

In central south Ohio we start in mid-late March and end around Thanksgiving This year it's been a banner time for grass to grow and need to be cut. We didn't even have a brownout in August and it's just been mow, mow and mow some more. I'm tuckered out.

When do other parts of the country start and stop mowing?

We mow pretty much year 'round here in most of Texas. It's a little slower in the middle of summer and winter. Most often in the spring of course.

 

[Wagtail]

I just did my first lawn mow a week ago (it's Spring here). I waited for the 'brown top' grass seed head to appear, as you do here in Tassie.

Autumn/Winter isn't a problem as the local forest fauna (possums, padimelons and wallabies) 'lawn' the property for me.

I might mow another 3-4 times during the Summer/early-Autumn.

 

[Boss 302]

In Virginia, start around the first of April and cut until the middle to last week of October.

 

[Creamer]

yesterday - mostly to chew up the leaves but I was surprised that the grass had grown a couple of inches in the last three weeks.