How to Mow Your Overgrown Lawn

How to Mow Your Overgrown Lawn

Look, we’ve all been there. Your schedule gets busy, you decide to binge-watch your favorite show on Netflix over the weekend, and just generally find something else to do rather than mow your lawn. But here you are, with a lawn you’re pretty sure might be housing a few yet-to-be-identified species of flora and fauna – maybe a wild man in a loincloth. What do you do?

Well, we here at Lawn Love first want to say, we understand. Your lawn doesn’t care about your schedule or your wants and desires – it just likes to grow. We’re here to help with our handy guide for how to mow your overgrown lawn.

First Things First

First and foremost, you need to understand that this is going to be a process. In good conscience, we simply can’t condone cutting off a lot of grass at once. It’s just not done. So, find a few warm and sunny days to hunker down and do what needs to be done to get your lawn back under control. Or, prepare plans to set up as the haunted house on the block once Halloween rolls around.

Get Your Trimmer

In the places where the grass has become really high (about knee height), you’re better off getting out the weed trimmer. Cut it back to about half of its current height and leave it alone. Your lawn needs time to heal after what you just put it through, you animal.

After about three or four days have passed or you stop hearing the tiny screams of the grass blades, whichever happens first, you should get the trimmer back out for another round. Cut the grass down until it’s between six and eight inches tall, then leave it to recover for a couple of more days.

Bring Out Your Mower

After you’ve given your poor little lawn time to get itself together again, you can get out your mower. Set it to a height that cuts about one-third of the height of the grass away. Make sure to mow your lawn with overlapping passes, which will leave behind an even cut. After this, water the lawn well and deep, giving it a few more days of rest.

From this point on, it’s probably a good idea to mow your lawn about every three to five days, until your desired height is reached. Remember, you don’t want to cut off too much at once, so aim for cutting about one-third of the blade at each mow. Make sure you’re using sharp blades since that’s easier on the grass, and that you mow in a different direction each time.

If you feel the lawn slipping from your control again, don’t forget that lawn care pros from Lawn Love are just a phone call away!

Sara Butler

Sara Butler has written scores of articles for Lawn Love -- everything from how to revive your dead lawn to how to start to lawn care tools every homeowner should have.