Healthy Lawn Report: How to Mow Two-Foot Tall Grass (Main Lawn)

I’m now keeping track of the lawns in a series of posts that I’m calling my “Healthy Lawn Report.” The title may be more aspirational than accurate!

UPDATED with Week 4 Photos:

Between a lovely weekend trip to see old college friends and a vicious heatwave, I haven’t made much progress with my outdoor projects in July.

However, I was back at it this past weekend.

I mowed the area once at a height of 4 inches, with the deck lowered. I collected the clippings in the mower bags and had no issues with the hose getting clogged. Success! The grass is no longer hay so I won’t have to rake and dump piles of clippings by hand anymore. With weekly cuts that will eventually result in the grass being cut at a height of 2.75 inches, I hope the area matches the rest of the lawn by the end of this growing season.

There is still a lot of dead grass and patchy spots, as I expected, but the area looks greener than it did after the first three cuts. I’m not aiming for golf course perfection, just a neat, healthy lawn. Admittedly, the main lawn isn’t a deep, uniform green – yet.

I haven’t had time to continue my de-thatching but hope to resume this weekend then top dress and re-seed in late summer/early fall.

I’m playing the long game when it comes to reclaiming this property since I am doing so much of the work myself and usually only have limited time during the weekend in which to do it.

It may be crazy, but I’m actually envisioning how good the lawn will look next spring and summer!

For now, here are six more in-progress photos. I’m still pleased with how things are shaping up.

UPDATED with Week 2 Photos:

Two weeks after brush hogging, pockets of hay covered the still-tall grass, but the area looked pretty good considering how much I’d cut. I decided that I needed only to mow. Luckily, I had to remove just three or four small branches ahead of time. For the first cut, I set my riding mower’s cutting height at 4 inches and kept the deck in the raised position. Then I mowed with only half of the blades actually cutting the grass so I wouldn’t get bogged down. For the second, third and fourth cuts, I simply lowered the deck and mowed off-center once again. Then I raked all the clippings onto a tarp and removed them. The entire job took 30 minutes and was quite easy. I was very pleased with the results.

Here are three before photos:

This is what it looked like after the first cut:

This is what it looked like after the final cut, before the final clean up:

The final Week 2 results:

PREVIOUSLY:

Area: Northern border of the main lawn which has been overtaken by wild rose bushes, assorted small trees, and grass that is more than two feet tall

Dimensions: 120′ L x 30′ W (3,600 square feet)

Goal(s): To restore the original dimensions of the main lawn

Challenge(s): None, particularly. The area is overgrown, but it’s also flat. With the right tools and a day or two of good weather, cutting the overgrowth and clearing fallen branches is very manageable.

Effort Level: 1 2 3 4 5

Time Commitment: 1 2 3 4 5

Mower vs. Brush Hog

As I mentioned in my Maple Tree Row project post last week, this past weekend I spent about an hour brush hogging the northern end of the main lawn. However, I was way off about the grass height: I thought it was maybe a foot high, but it was well over two feet! I’m not finished reclaiming the area but thought it would be useful to post before and after photos. I also shot video of me brush hogging and will upload it to this post once I learn how to do so.

Here is what I started with:

The grass reached just above the middle of my thigh and had gone to seed. It’s so long that it has flopped over; I kicked up a few clumps to show how overgrown it is.

This “before” photo provides additional perspective. The amount and type of growth is not at all challenging for a brush hog though just the long grass would likely bog down the average push or riding lawn mower as I learned the hard way last spring.

Here is a screen shot of me at work. It was very windy last Saturday hence the face mask.

My underlying goal with this project, as it is with all of my other green projects, is to move as quickly as possible from the “reclamation” stage to the hopefully easier “maintenance” stage.

That means using the right tool(s).

Operator or Equipment Failure?

This project actually began last spring when I attempted to use my riding mower to cut grass just in front of where I was working this past weekend. The grass was well over a foot long as I recall. Presumably due to time constraints, the previous owners had shrunk the lawn’s footprint and let the northern portion revert to meadow. They did so in a very artistic way, delineating the lawn and the meadow with an undulating demarcation line – something to remember should I find myself having to shrink the footprint for whatever reason. The dimensions of the meadow were (coming!).

Despite my sister’s and my gung ho attempts, the riding mower bogged down. My brother, however, had no such problems. Here is a photo of his handy work:

Mice and snakes bolted from the long grass as my brother mowed. The pond is on the top left, completely hidden.

After he mowed the area a few times that day, I’ve since been able to maintain it on my own just like any other section of lawn. However, a lot of thatch had built up over the years due to the mulching of grass clippings. I am in the process of eliminating it this year and improving the lawn’s health. I’ll detail my efforts in a separate post.

If you’re wondering about the state of the mower blades after all that tough cutting – my brother is a total gearhead and he maintains all of our family’s tools and equipment (sharpening, oil changes, using stabilizers, etc.). He repairs, checks and/or uses any piece of equipment before I do if either of us has any concerns about how it will function. I’ve never had a problem with anything working less than optimally.

Great Results

Back to the northern edge. Here’s a close up of the brush hogging in progress:

I doubt this area had been uncut more than a few years. Luckily, much of the old lawn grass hadn’t been choked out by the overgrowth.

Here is a medium shot, before I’d attacked the wild rose bushes and other non-grass vegetation:

Here is what it looked like after an hour of brush hogging:

This is the same corner featured in the previous photo, shown from a slightly different angle. Deep thatch had smothered the lawn. I’ve actually removed a lot of it in the past year. The lawn no longer has a spongy feel.

A long shot. The area looks pretty clean. I didn’t cut the upper right corner due to a good-sized stand of perennial milkweed growing there; it’s the host plant of monarch caterpillars/butterflies. I’ll figure out one day how to keep the long grass out of there.

It’s so lovely to see the white kousa dogwood featured more prominently, even at this interim stage. I was never tempted to cut down what at first were mystery trees. They “bloomed” the first spring after I’d bought the house. It pays to be patient when cleaning up overgrown property.

I think the results are fairly dramatic.

Lawncare experts warn against stressing grass by cutting more than one-third of its height at any one time. I don’t know if that applies to what is essentially field grass. The area is shaded for several hours each day at this time of year so it shouldn’t “burn.” Also, it’s supposed to rain a few days this week, and I won’t cut the grass again until it has rested for at least seven days.

Next Steps

To finish this project so that I can maintain this section of lawn with my riding mower, I’ll need to do the following:

Remove old fallen branches, some of which are quite large and heavy

Cut down the remaining small trees and remove them

Brush hog at least one more time

Mow a few times to reduce the size of the grass clippings then bag and remove them

That may sound like a lot of work, but I removed a lot of branches a few weeks earlier when my tree guy was on site with his commercial-grade chipper. It’ll probably take one afternoon of work to reach the mowing stage.

I’ll continue to post progress photos.

Thanks for reading!