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Tips for mowing your lawn
Mississippi Gardens Newspaper and Web Column - May 31, 2004

Warm season grasses really get growing in June. Growing grass means mowing grass and believe it or not there is a right way (and wrong way) to mow grass. Mowing grass at the correct height promotes a dense, high quality turf that will look good and aggressively compete with weeds. St. Augustine is best cut at 2 1/2 to 3 inches while centipede performs best when cut at 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Have you measured lately? If the yard looks like a hayfield when you finish mowing you probably let the grass get too tall.

Push mowers should have all 4 wheels set at the same notch. Riding mower tires should be inflated equally or so that the mower is fairly level. Park the mower on the driveway and use a ruler to measure the height of the mower blade. This is not an exact science, but we can be close.

Keep the mower blade sharp so that it's more like using scissors to cut the grass than a butter knife. If grass is cut with a sharp blade it heals faster and thus loses less water and more quickly creates a barrier to invading fungi. After the mower blade is sharpened, make sure it's put back on correctly. However, if it's put on upside down you will know as soon as you start to mow.

The two great temptations for those of us who own a front or back yard is over fertilizing and/or over watering the turf. I sympathize with folks who have lawn irrigation systems because they paid good money for that system and by-golly they want to use it. That's all right, but watering for a few minutes every day is actually detrimental. It promotes shallow root systems and creates a wonderful environment for fungal diseases that like to eat grass. Irrigate maybe once every two weeks or so by applying about an inch of water in the absence of rainfall. A tuna can or rain gauge can be used to measure output.

Centipede and St. Augustine Grass will grow in south Mississippi most of the time without much fertilizer. One retired turf specialist at Mississippi State used to say the best way to fertilize centipede was to drag an empty fertilizer bag over the lawn. St. Augustine doesn't need much more than that. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one. Excess nutrients, especially nitrogen, may actually encourage the development of grass diseases.

To summarize, this is a great time to sharpen the mower blade, turn off the irrigation system and fertilize wisely. Then, get the ruler out and be a good example for the rest of the neighborhood. Happy mowing!

These archived columns were written by Kerry Johnson, a hobby gardener, former weekly newspaper columnist and an Area Extension Horticulture Agent for 11 coastal counties in Mississippi.