If you use a power mower to cut your grass, do you mulch the clippings, or bag and dump them?
I use to mulch, but this season I started bagging and dumping the clippings, mainly because the grass grew so fast I couldn’t keep up, and it got too long to mulch. Too much clippings just sit on top of the lawn, and it looks bad and can’t be good for the grass.
Anyway, I’ve been removing all the clippings so far, and it looks pretty good. I was just wondering what the most common practice was, and what the outcomes are for each.
I always mulch and the only downside I see on the East Coast is the accumulation of thatch. To compensate, I have the lawn aerated about every 5 years or so,
Mostly mulch, but will bag a couple of passes if I want grass clippings for a purpose such as ‘greens’ for compost pile, though grass required a good mix in the pile not to mat down and go anaerobic, so a bit of a pain to use in compost.
In the fall I also mulch/mow some of the leaves, as yes grass clippings are a fertilizer but its unbalanced, however mulched leaves make up for that and balance it out. In the fall I tend to allow the grass to grow a bit higher than normal to ‘support’ the leaves up a bit higher off the ground, this way the mower get to them with no lief left behind.
In early spring, the grass grows fast and is pretty wet, so I have to bag it to prevent the clumps from choking the lawn. I compost it for the garden.
Around this time of year, I switch to mulching. The combination of hot weather and slow growth makes mulching feasible, plus the compost pile is overflowing anyway.
I voted “mulch” because i always mulch the grass clippings. But in the fall i use the lawnmower to pick up the last of the leaves. And then i bag. Otherwise I’d cover the lawn in a couple inches of shredded leaves, and i think that would kill it.
I use the shredded leaves to mulch all the shrubs on the property, and the raspberry patch. And i dump the excess in a pile on the back. My husband buries the kitchen vegetable scraps in the pile the rest of the year. I call it the mulch pile, he calls it compost.
The climate is too dry around here for clippings to decay in a timely fashion. People who don’t bag clippings, and even some who do, must have their lawns power raked in Spring. Power raking does a much better job than could ever be done by hand.
I bag. It’s much preferable to having all those clippings getting tracked everywhere. I have a nice bagging mower, walk-behind and not self propelled. And we have a big compose pile a little ways back in the woods. But I only mow 3500 square feet.
I bag and our lawn produces about four bags of clippings per job. Our neighbours, with whom we get along really well, have a compost heap in their backyard and we contribute to it every week or so.
And we get any soil we need from their compost so it works out well.
Good timing. I got a new used lawn mower a few weeks ago and it has a mulching option. I’ve only ever bagged in the past so today might be my first time mulching.
I bag. My lawn grows too fast this time of year, mulching just leaves piles of wet grass that kills the grass below it if it’s not removed. If I did want to mulch, it would have to mow 3 or more times a week to keep the clippings small.
The clippings are the only fertilizer my lawn gets.
I sometimes mow it when it’s seriously overgrown. IME, clipping clumps whether wet or dry will not choke the lawn out, and in a live Northeast USA lawn earthworms and other soil life will take care of any “thatch”. It may look ugly for a bit; but I conveniently live where that doesn’t much matter.
Always mulch, since bagging is a hassle and the clippings are good lawn food. I may bag if it’s really long and leaves windrows, but in that case I’d probably just rake up the leftovers and throw them on a compost pile.
Of course always has exceptions - I’ll bag leaves, but that’s because of the leaves, not the grass.
Try it! Mulching is much less work, and it fertilizes the lawn. Some mowers do a better job of mulching than others, and i optimized for that when i last shopped. I might, if i put off mowing for too long, have one patch of the lawn once a year that gets clumps of grass. I just run the mower over that patch a second time and they go away.
It might be relevant that most of my lawn is clumping grass, not running grass. (Fine fescues, not Kentucky blue grass.) So there’s possibly more room between the plants for the shredded grass to fall into.