For years we felt that we had to bag up our grass clippings and haul them away to the landfill.  Clippings were unsightly on the lawn and if not taken away they would build up and lead to the development of thatch.  It just isn’t so.

The best way to approach grass clippings is to look at them as beneficial to your lawn.  Clippings contain nutrients which lawns can use.  Because they have a high water content they dry quickly and are rapidly broken down by fungi and bacteria in the soil, releasing the nutrients to do their work for the growing lawn.  In the end you will need less fertilizer to keep your lawn looking good as clippings left on the lawn contain about 4% of the total amount of nitrogen needed by healthy lawns.

Grass clippings don’t cause thatch, that layer of living and dead plant tissue which lays on the soil surface.  Thatch might look like grass clippings but it isn’t.  It’s actually components of grass roots and it’s caused by too much nitrogen and too much water.  When the thatch layer gets too thick it blocks water and air from reaching the soil below and stresses the grass blades above.

A healthy lawn will have some thatch at root level and it’s a good thing.  It shades the roots and acts as mulch, keeping moisture at soil level.

If you think grass clippings on the lawn are causing you grief you’re probably not cutting it often enough.  The golden rule of lawn care is to never cut more than one-third of the lawn height.  If you do this the clippings that are produced are very small and decompose much more rapidly.  A mulching mower makes the clippings even smaller by circulating them within the mower deck and cutting them over and over again.

 More fertilizer equals more mowing.  It’s a very simple equation.  Too much nitrogen causes the lawn to grow too fast for its own health and forces you to mow more often.  Use a fertilizer which has at least half of its nitrogen in slow release form.  You’ll see much more even results over a longer period of time and there will less likelihood of thatch build-up.

If handled properly grass clippings can be a great benefit to your lawn, so don’t bag them up.  Cut your lawn more frequently and let the clippings lie.