Can you have a lawn that grows slowly enough that mowing it once a month won’t make you feel like you need to rake or even bale the clippings? If you have cool-season grass, that answer is probably yes. Even warm-season grasses could be manipulated to work well in this scenario. Still, there are a lot of factors to consider if you want both a nice lawn and one that only needs to be mown once a month.
Can You Really Mow Your Lawn Just Once a Month? – The Short Answer
Yes, you really can mow your lawn just once a month. However, your ability to do so depends on the care you give your lawn and the grass type you have. Nearly any grass type could be mown once a month with decent results unless it’s a tropical species like zoysia.
You Can Mow Your Lawn Once Per Month If…
As you already know, most lawns need to be mown at least once a week if not more frequently. However, nearly any grass type, except zoysia, can be mown less frequently if certain criteria are met. Below are the 6 criteria I have found to have the greatest impact on how frequently you need to mow your lawn.
You Bag Your Lawn Clippings
While I generally recommend mulching your lawn clippings instead of collecting them as this adds a small amount of nutrients back into your soil- that’s not what you want to do if you’re trying to slow your grass growth. Bagging your clippings and not adding additional fertilizer may result in grass that’s a little less green but it could greatly slow the growth speed of your lawn, too.
You Use a Deep Watering Schedule
Deep watering is one of the few techniques you can employ to slow the growth of your line while still keeping it healthy and vibrant. Deep watering means that, instead of watering several times a day or even once a day, you’re only watering your lawn once or twice a week but for much longer each session.
Temperatures are On Your Side
Temperature makes the single biggest difference when it comes to lawn growth speed. Cooler temperatures slow all grass types down and may even put them into a dormant state. The thing is, you can’t usually control the temperature of your lawn. However, planning to install trees or other landscaping that provides light, dappled shade can result in reduced lawn growth in the areas this affects.
You Only Fertilize Lightly or Not at All
An abundance of nutrients will result in rapid lawn growth. Most lawns need very few nutrients to survive and provide good coverage of your lawn. Will your lawn look a little better and grow thicker with better nutrition? Yes. However, if you want a lawn that looks just fine and that needs less upkeep, you may want to re-evaluate what you’re feeding it.
You Let Your Lawn Grow Longer
Allowing your lawn to grow a bit more will reduce the need to mow by that same amount. If you currently try to keep your lawn between 2 and 3 inches, allowing it to get up to 4 inches before cutting it down to 2 can give you another week or so of growth before you need to mow it.
You Have Just the Right Grass Type
Different grass types have different growth rates, no matter the weather. For example, zoysia grass will, in any situation, grow at least an inch a week and could grow up to 2 inches a week in ideal conditions. St. Augustine, on the other hand, can be kept at a growth rate of about 2 inches a month. Tall fescue is the cool-season option to pick for slow growth with an average growth rate of 3 inches per month.
Here’s What Will Happen In Every Other Situation
Not mowing your lawn more than once a month is, in most urban areas, not going to be a problem for any other reason than appearance. In more rural areas, you will likely have some practical problems if you only mow once a month, but they can be avoided if you work at it over time.
Mowing your lawn once a month in an urban area with cool-season grass
Can I mow my lawn once a month if I have cool-season grass? Yes. Cool-season grass is ideally suited to plans for mowing the lawn infrequently. Plan to allow your lawn to grow up to 3.5 inches, water deeply, and fertilize no more than once a season and you should have excellent results.
If you choose to water frequently and lightly, fertilize regularly and mulch your grass clippings, and still mow just once a month your grass will likely end up hitting its growth limit. This means a lawn full of 5” grass stems that are starting to go to seed in the warm, summer months.
Mowing your lawn once a month in an urban area with warm-season grass
With warm-season grass, your grass type will likely grass faster than cool-season grasses during any month where temperatures are between 55F and 95F. This means your grass could get far too tall for safe and fast mowing within a single month. You will likely not have many weeds but those you do could have gone to seed in this time frame, resulting in a larger problem.
When you do mow, you will need to bag or rake your clippings so they don’t start to decay in large clumps and cause bald spots on your lawn. Further, tall grass in drier climates and sunny areas could become a fire hazard.
Mowing your lawn once a month in a rural area with cool-season grass
Like allowing your cool-season lawn to grow up in town, you’ll end up with a tall lawn full of grass ready to go to seed. However, a rural setting is also more likely to have more seed types in it. This will result in your lawn containing more weeds and, just like your grass, these weeds will be ready to go to seed in 4 weeks or so. Then, when you go to mow them, you may end up broadcasting this seed.
Mowing your lawn once a month in a rural area with warm-season grass
Just like the scenario where you have cool-season grass in a rural setting and use standard care with shallow watering and frequent feeding, what you will end up with is a tall lawn, many weeds, and a need to collect your grass clippings or they may molder on your lawn.
“Alternative” Lawns and Non-Grass Lawns
Another scenario in which you would only need to mow your lawn 2 or 3 times a year, far less than once a month, is with the installation and upkeep of an “alternative” or “non-traditional” lawn. This includes meadow and prairie-style lawns as well as moss lawns or lawns with a low-growing groundcover.
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