One of my 11 year old daughters (I have two) put in a request for me to bag. I think it’s simply a matter of grass clippings getting in her frizzy hair and everywhere else. My other daughter prefers that I don’t mow at all because she likes the flowers and wildness. My wife prefers what’s easiest for me. My “yard” is basically a field up at our dacha that I mow maybe six times a year if I’m lucky so I just blow it out the side. I can bag if I mow more frequently but that rarely happens.
You guys let your children play on the lawn! Kids today are so spoiled.
When I was growing up, stay off the lawn was rule #1. In fact, we had a neighbor down the block who hated kids and she would sometimes pop out of the house and threaten to tell our parents that we were on her front lawn (even though we werent’t) just to scare us. And, yes, sometimes she would tell our parents that we were on somebody’s lawn on some random day in the past that she made up and get us in trouble.
Comedians today make fun of the crotchety old guy yelling “get off my lawn,” but that was my reality growing up. All the ancient people (anyone over 30) were obsessed with keeping kids from touching their lawns.
Bagging up grass clippings to send off one’s property is an ecological offense. I have never bagged and never will. I have only watered in severe drought to keep the pecans on two trees. I have noticed that the yards where I have lived that were never bagged or watered always fared better during and after said droughts compared to my watering, bagging neighbors.
I guess if you’re obsessed by the need for a super-manicured-looking lawn, the specter of an occasional clump of grass clippings will haunt you.
Doesn’t bother me, but I’m one of them trashy people (even lived in Kentucky and West Virginia once upon a time).
Tiny Queens, NY lawn here. I bag because I’m lazy. I hate mowing the lawn (and most other yardwork), and it ends up getting too long to mulch well before I drag myself out to mow again. So the mulcher doesn’t work well, and I’d have to rake a bunch of the grass up afterwards.
If I’m being good, and mowing weekly, then sure I’ll mulch. I think my record was 3 weeks in a row once.
It is not just an ecological offense, as you say, bagging up and removing the grass clippings removes nutrients from the lawn that will eventually need to be replaced by fertilizers. Wait…I guess that is an ecological offense. 
I have a 1 acre yard and I neither bag nor mulch, I just spray the clippings and mow often enough that the clumps are not an issue.
I guess I’m the oddball here. I used to mulch but found it too inconvenient. During peak growing season I had to mow at least every four days; if not, significant clumpage. I know I could just run over the clumps again, which is what I did, but at one point I asked myself “why the hell are you making it so you have to mow the lawn twice each time out?”. Additionally, clippings always ended up all over the driveway, sidewalk, and street, which created even more labor.
Mind you, this was with a sharp blade and a new Toro mulching mower.
Maybe my grass is funky.
mmm
If it makes you feel better I occasionally collect the neighbors’ clippings and spread them on my lawn before mowing to get more fertilizer, so I’m offsetting some of the offenders.
The one downside of always mulching is that our town has a cool truck that goes around every Monday with a giant remote controlled hose on the side to vacuum up all the grass clippings. It looks like the trunk of an elephant sucking them up. My son likes to watch it do it’s thing and is annoyed that it never gets to stop in front of our house.
My walkbehind is a ten year old Honda bagger, used on about a half acre. I use the clippings as instant mulch on flowerbeds and in the garden, and right now am feeding a few bagsful to Chuck, SirLoin, and TBone. They have eaten the small field they are in to a nub. Husband uses a small tractor with a 5 foot deck for the orchard and That Which He Feels MUST be Mowed (I would just fence it all in and get more cows) and windrows it up for me to collect. Grass clippings are high in nitrogen and once the weather warms up it’s good on the corn and in general keeping weeds down in the garden. I’m opposed the sending it to the landfill and also to putting stuff on your lawn to make it grow faster so you have to mow more.
Oh yeah, I’m the wife here. I wish I had one, though;) or at least someone who liked to do housework…
I always hooked a grass catcher to my mower, and emptied it into a trash can or bag at my customer’s place, which was OK with the customer. At one place, the first time I did that I filled nineteen bags, and the mower kicked up so much dust I looked like I was in blackface, and I was spitting mud! After that I bought cheap masks to wear when mowing that yard.
Southeast Michigan here as well, the guy who does my mowing mulches. He just mowed yesterday and I’m not seeing any clumps of grass. Mind you, while my lawn is very thick and green, it will never look perfectly manicured because it’s liberally sprinkled with clover and wood violets as well as grass. Which I suppose is also ecologically beneficial, since when there are small flowers in between mowings, it provides bees with plenty of nectar.
However because I have a lot of trees on my property, I do rake and bag or burn leaves in fall.
Why not just mulch the leaves? After all the primary research which determined you should mulch them comes from just up the road from you at MSU?
I guess I could but there are so many, as in giant drifts of leaves… I do leave a lot of them behind, and all the leaves in the wooded area.
I use the side discharge around the edges first and then take it off and mulch the rest. Keeps most of the grass on the lawn and off the driveway and sidewalk.