Finding the Perfect Length for Your Lawn

When it comes to your lawn, height does matter.

Top Mowing tips 

• Mow at the right height for your grass type
• Don’t mow too short
• Mow regularly
• Keep your mower blades sharp
• Reduce mowing height gradually

The height you set your lawn mower is extremely important in maintaining the overall health of your lawn.

New Lawns

When your lawn is young and still establishing it’s important to mow your lawn on a higher setting to reduce stress and help the lawn establish quicker. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to hold off on your first mow until the root system has a strong hold on the soil beneath.

Seasonal Mowing Advice

During colder months, it is best to keep your lawn a bit longer to ensure your lawn is exposed to as much sunlight as possible. Daily sunlight hours are a lot lower during the winter months of the year, and consequently the growth rate of your lawn will slow down. Allowing the grass blade to grow a little longer will help your lawn retain colour and helps to block out weeds.

During warmer months where your lawn is actively growing, you can drop the height of your mower a bit.

The One Third Rule

Known widely as the one third rule, lawn grasses should only be brought down each mowing – as the name suggests – by one third of the leaf height at any one time, in order to maintain peak condition.

Turf Type mowing heights

Sir Walter DNA Certified Soft Leaf Buffalo = 20 – 40mm

Sir Grange Zoysia = 10 – 50mm

Zoysia Australis = 20 – 50mm

TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda = 9 – 36mm

Eureka Kikuyu = 30 – 50mm

These mowing heights are a guide only, so we recommend you do a test patch to find the best mowing height for your lawn first.

Mowing Tip:

Lawn Stripes

The reason stripes appear as they do, is as simple as the way the light reflects off the grass-blade. Blades bent towards you look dark, and blades bent the opposite way from you will appear lighter. All this means is you have to bend the grass blades opposing ways to create the stripe effect. If you don’t have a cylinder mower which has an in-built roller, after mowing with your rotary mower, you can use a roller to push the blades down by rolling in opposite directions. Whilst you may not get the look completely like they do on sporting grounds, you can get a similar effect that will still look great.

For more lawn care tips and tricks check out our extensive blog library.