Tips & Tricks for Lawn Mowing a Garden

These 10 tips and tricks will have you lawn mowering with some of the best in the world. Just kidding but they sure will help you make your garden look like the garden you want it to:

1. Each run up the lawn with the lawn mower should slightly overlap the previous one; put a mark on each side of the mower as your ‘overlap marker’
2. If you want 'straight stripes’ on a large lawn or a lawn without a straight edge begin by mowing a straight line down the middle of the lawn. Now mow on either side of it
3. Don’t worry about cutting ALL the grass at the edges of the lawn; if you do a final cut all around the perimeter of the lawn once or twice you’ll get all the end bits and add a ‘professional’ frame to your mowing
4. If your lawnmower has a roller change mowing direction at least every month
5. If your mower has four wheels you MUST overlap each run so that the wheels do not go in the same place all the time. Repeated grass cutting in the same track will produce ruts and tramlines!
6. If the grass is damp or long slow down your speed (not the blade speed)
7. If you are ‘scalping’ the lawn in some places (high spots) raise the mowing height. Scalped areas will often be mossy and/or weedy
8. Mow slopes and shady areas one setting higher than the rest of the lawn
9. If the lawn has a ‘silver sheen’ or ‘frayed’ look after mowing the blade(s) need sharpening
10. If you’re using a cylinder mower and the blade stutters or produces a ribbed or rippled effect in the lawn then either the mower is blunt or under powered or the grass is too long or too wet - slow down your lawn mowing speed and mow more frequently