Because I see this quite a bit and have never understood it.
Step 1. Let your grass grow until it is a foot tall.
Step 2. Drop your mower down to the lowest setting.
Step 3. Struggle to mow your yard as your mower chokes on the foot-high grass and leaves huge clumps of cut grass in it’s wake.
I guess some people just hate to mow, and put it off as long as they can. But to me it’s a strategy that backfires because it is so much more work to shove your mower through foot-high grass than it would be if you just cut it once a week or so while it was still relatively short.
Plus, if I recall correctly (I haven’t been responsible for a lawn for something like 47 years) it’s a great way to kill the grass. You’ll be cutting off the live part and leaving dead stumps.
I’m sure you’re right about the reason, though, hating to take the time to cut the grass as often as it should be cut. It takes a certain amount of maturity to keep up on chores instead of doing fun stuff (exception made for the very small percentage of people who truly do not have time, in which case they should probably not have lawns either).
Roddy
Well, as a kid who had to mow the family yard, I would wait until bodily harm was threatened, and then go out and mow it so low that my hope was it wouldn’t need mowing again for two weeks.
Of course it was stupid - but I was a kid and HATED mowing grass.
Unfortunately, in Illinois in the summer, the grass had grown an inch by the time you returned the mower to the garage after just finishing the job.
BTW, to make matters worse - my father got me a job with the city, when I was 16 and 17 and 18 to mow ALL of the parks and city grounds in the city…it was horrible; never ended, humid and sweaty, damned bugs and bees and flies, poison ivy, hitting rocks and cans and other hidden things in grass, dangerous mowers, cars almost running you over as you did the berms, steep hills, ant hills, snakes…let’s just say it wasn’t my favorite job.
One day, sweating my ass off, mowing some stupid city park in 90% humidy, some guy parked his car and walked over and said, “Gee, it must be great to work outside and get the exercise and see the results of your work!”
My look must have spoken volumes, as he quickly went back to his car and drove off without me having to say a word.
I’m more interested in the motivations of the weirdos I see spending hours every day painstakingly tending their landscaping. I can only assume they have no other obligations. Must be nice. I’m lucky to get five hours of sleep most nights, so if I don’t get to the back lawn every week they’ll just have to deal.
I do take care of the front every week. Don’t want the amateur groundskeepers on my street getting too upset. Maybe someone should perform a compassionate capture and release them onto a golf course somewhere.
I did a favor for a buddy who worked for a lawn company. As a “thank you” he began treating my lawn with fertilizers/weed killers anytime he was in the neighborhood. The lawn was gorgeous, but needed cut twice a week. When I figured out what was going on, I begged him to stop.
We have a guy in our neighborhood who we call the “Perfect Lawn” guy. He’s one of these older, probably retired, guys who has the time to go out and meticulously water the lawn by hand every day. His yard looks great. His house is across the street from a house we call “The Crack House”. You can guess what their yard looks like. It must kill him to have to look at that every day.
Yeah but then you have all that goat crap to clean up. I think I’d rather just mow.
In my house, that father would have got a shiny new gas lawnmower for Christmas.
As for the OP, I think it’s a combination of sloth and not understanding how to actually mow a yard.
It’s often easier when the grass is really high to mow it on a high setting and then drop it down and mow again on a lower one, rather than trying to power it through in one low pass.
Also, a lot (most?) people cut their grass too low to begin with. It seems like everyone around here mows their St. Augustine grass at about 2", when the correct height according to every site I can find says 3"-3.5" is ideal.
It’s like the other people don’t realize that grass growth is more or less constant- if your grass grows 1/2" per week, you’ll have 2.5" grass after a week if you typically cut at 2", and 3.5" if you typically cut at 3".
Cutting it lower doesn’t do you any good unless you do something like cut at 2" and then come back in 3 weeks and cut at 3", trimming off 1/2" of grass. If anything, it’s more stressful for the grass because you’re cutting off most of the actual “leaves” of the plant instead of only removing a moderate portion.
What I don’t understand is that it seems like every Saturday afternoon I see multiple knuckleheads out mowing their yards. Is there any reason they pick the very hottest time of the day to mow when it’s 101F/38.3C, and then look totally miserable while doing it? Mowing at 8 am is much more pleasant, and even noon isn’t so God-awful hot. Even 6 or 7 pm is better than 3, but
FTR, you just described the strategy I employed while in grad school and regularly working 60 hour weeks. It was simply a matter of time management. I could spend a hellish 90 minutes mowing the lawn every two weeks or 30 minutes every 5-6 days.
As someone who is literally right now in the middle of trying to drive my riding mower through foot-high grass, I would dearly love to be able to mow it more often. Nothing would make me happier than to have that kind of leisure time. It’s been four weeks since I’ve had enough time on a Saturday to get out there and tackle it.
Whoop - have to go again. My autistic daughter needs help getting to sleep for her nap.
