First off, during the early fall, I still want you to cut the lawn tall. If you have been cutting at 4″ like I recommend, you can back it down one notch and come in at the 3 to 3.5″ mark and be just fine. The reason I still want you to cut tall is because of blade leaf surface area. Remember, grass blades grab sunlight for photosynthesis. This process essentially creates sugars that are sent down the grass plant to the roots. As you know, grass expands roots in the fall, making the lawn thicker. That means we want as much leaf blade surface as possible so the roots can expand more and more. We also get shorter days in the fall, meaning we get less sunlight.

Next, you should still mulch the clippings as long as the temperatures are above 50 degrees. Mulching returns nutrients into the soil and that is very healthy. If it gets below 50 degrees, however, the clippings will not degrade well and that could cause future problems. It is, however, ok to catch clippings if you are also sucking up leaves in the yard.

On your final cut of the season, (usually November in most areas of the United States) it is ok to mow a little shorter. I’d say 2.5″ is actually just fine. This will keep the lawn from laying over underneath snow pack. It will also reduce the chance of snow mold developing.

There you go guys, Fall time mowing tips you never thought you’d need to know!

Thanks to my Dad who played “spray model” in this one. Those are his knockout roses that were infested with the Japanese beetles. If you are viewing the blog in the email newsletter, please click the title above to come to the site and view it. I get some nice closeups of the beetles on this one!

Here is an organic/natural/green insecticide choice that I would also endorse for killing Japanese beetles. Get a couple bottles guys… this is not a concentrate. It is pre-mixed in a small spray bottle.

I was talking to a buddy this weekend about his lawn and something occurred to me. But before I go into that, let me tell you a funny story for a moment: a story sadness, abuse and of lawn care injustice!

This friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) has been struggling with his grass for a couple years; and this season he finally gave up his pride and asked me for help. Of course, I was happy to offer him a discount price of $7 for my lawn fertilizing ebook! (”business is business” as they say!)

All has been going well in his yard as far as I knew until just yesterday he called me telling me that my book was crap and that my lawn treatment plan was bogus! So, of course, I gotta defend my little pea patch, so I stormed over to his house to see what the heck was going on and guess what? … it was his dang fault!

You see, my friend was doing all the right lawn care applications: fertilization, weed control, crab grass control, etc: but he did not know (or care to read about) the very basics.

He had been scalping his lawn (mower set on very lowest setting) from the beginning because he was under the impression “that is how golf courses do it.” The abuse is in the fact that he was destroying his perfectly good turf by cutting it too low, but the true injustice is in the fact that he blamed me for it! Ain’t that just the way things go sometimes?

(No, the pic of that hand in grass above is not from his lawn, that is actually my lawn where I took him to demonstrate what a proper cutting looks like.)

Story over (my friend has to buy me a 6-pack now to apologize ): but wait… I checked the blog stats and we have gotten more than 200 new newsletter subscribers here in the last month. Welcome ya’ll. However, that means that many of you may have missed out on some of the very basic lawn tips that act as the foundation for everything else.

With that in mind, here are some articles for all of you to read and brush up on the basics of lawn care before you go trying to get all fancy and make your lawn look like a golf course! By the way, one of our most popular articles ever on this site is about Lawn Striping. But before you can have a lawn worth striping, you need to get it healthy and green.
Here are some helpful links for you guys!

How To Mow Your Lawn Properly

How To Fertilize Your Yard

Best Sprinkler To Buy, How To Water Your Lawn

Growing Grass, Lawn Seeding

And last but not least: get the book for $7 on step-by-step lawn treatments. It works; I know cuz I use this same treatment schedule on my own lawn.

Lawn Treatment Schedule Book