To collect the clippings, or not

sevenhills

Grass cutting; does it 'feed' the lawn when the grass clippings are left, and not collected after mowing?


What do you ?


Most people seem to remove the clippings, to keep things tidy.

Mojisola

We never collected the grass clippings unless the grass hadn't been cut for a while.

When clippings are left on the lawn, they improve the humus content of the soil and provide food for the grass.

We also didn't cut the lawn as low as most people seem to - that and leaving the grass clippings in place resulted in a lawn that never dried out or went yellow during dry summers.

glasgowdan

If you have a mulch mower then yes, feel free not to collect the clippings at any time. But if it's just a normal cut and drop I'd rake them up. Any dense clumps can sit on top of the lawn and leave yellow patches.
I've mulched some lawns every 2 weeks for a few years and they look great.

Ebe_Scrooge

I've heard various theories on this. The general advice seems to be - if you're cutting little and often then leave the cuttings on the lawn, if you leave it longer between cuts and take more off with each cut, then remove the clippings.


This, from the BBC, sounds pretty sensible advice :


"When you cut the grass during the spring and summer, leave the clippings on the lawn. As they decompose, they release up to 30 per cent of the lawn's required nutrients. Remove the clippings from the lawn at the beginning and end of the growing season when decomposition is slow."


Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/organic_lawn1.shtml




<edit> One other point occurs to me. If you have kids who like to play outside on the lawn ( which, personally, I think is far preferable to them being stuck in front of the TV ! ), then if you go for the "leave the clippings on" approach, they'll come in with clippings all over their clothes, and traipsing grass all through the house. It's for this reason that I always make sure the clippings are well-and-truly removed from my lawns - but obviously this problem won't affect everyone :-)

Grenage

I cut the lawn once a week with a manual cylinder mower, leaving the clippings where they fall. No problems as of yet.

glasgowdan

Grenage wrote: »

I cut the lawn once a week with a manual cylinder mower, leaving the clippings where they fall. No problems as of yet.

Made me think of this, classic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KDoxevZgTU

glasgowdan

Ebe_Scrooge wrote: »

I've heard various theories on this. The general advice seems to be - if you're cutting little and often then leave the cuttings on the lawn, if you leave it longer between cuts and take more off with each cut, then remove the clippings.


This, from the BBC, sounds pretty sensible advice :


"When you cut the grass during the spring and summer, leave the clippings on the lawn. As they decompose, they release up to 30 per cent of the lawn's required nutrients. Remove the clippings from the lawn at the beginning and end of the growing season when decomposition is slow."


Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/organic_lawn1.shtml

I wouldn't listen to 'The BBC' on anything very often! Mulching lawns at any time of year can work great if the lawn isn't left with great clumps lying on it. And even if it is, the lawn will look perfectly ok as it grows.

Sicard

I could be wrong but leaving the clippings, sometimes but not always, can thicken up the lawn. You can see them regrowing if you strim and the clippings go onto the beds and they start to grow.

glasgowdan

Sicard wrote: »

I could be wrong but leaving the clippings, sometimes but not always, can thicken up the lawn. You can see them regrowing if you strim and the clippings go onto the beds and they start to grow.

I've never known this to happen. I believe what often happens is people forget to weed the borders if they're covered in grass clippings and then one day they notice the grass weeds coming through as they would normally.

Grenage

The clippings won't start growing, but any seeds mixed in might.

Apodemus

glasgowdan wrote: »

I've never known this to happen. I believe what often happens is people forget to weed the borders if they're covered in grass clippings and then one day they notice the grass weeds coming through as they would normally.

...or just that the seed heads in the cut grass start to sprout.

On the lawn itself, the constant topping encourages vegetative spread and this is more important than self-seeding in maintaining plant populations. There is a risk that leaving too many clippings on the lawn encourages moss and/or provides space for other weed seeds to grow, but removing it all means that you need to fertilise sufficiently to replace the nutritional content of the material removed. If you are doing an autumn scarify, you are removing all that built-up thatch anyway.