The Top Six Reasons to Mulch Your Lawn

We’ve been in the garden care business for over 60 years and we love to share some of things we have leaned along the way.

One topic that regularly comes up is “should I mulch my lawn”. Our answer to this is a resounding YES, but before we start we should explain what mulching your lawn is, it’s when you leave the grass clippings on the lawn rather than collecting and removing them and here are 6 reasons why you should mulch your lawn.

  1. Leaving the clippings on the lawn returns nutrient to the lawn, removing the clippings takes nutrient away which must be replaced with fertiliser.
  2. Mulching is beneficial in returning nutrients and giving the soil more organic matter.
  3. Mulch helps protect the soil from extremes of temperature and holds in moisture. (Although leaving too many clippings on the lawn can cover lawn grass and create conditions for diseases to flourish).
  4. Cutting small amounts of grass off the top produces short clippings that will fall through the grass to the soil surface and will be easily broken down and incorporated into the soil.
  5. The microscopic elements of the mulch comprise nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Trace minerals are also present.
  6. The amount of nitrogen returned to the soil is thought to be as much as 90 kg/ha. Since nitrogen is the most expensive component of all lawn fertilisers, it pays to leave clippings when they won’t smother the lawn.

 

There are a few occasions when leaving your clippings to mulch your lawn is detrimental:

  • Don’t mulch when the grass has grown longer than 7 cm and a lot need to be cut off.
  • Mulching lawn mowers cut up clippings to shorter lengths, but if there is too much mulch or the grass is damp the mulch will clump and cover the lawn grass.
  • Diseased lawns should not be mulched as it will spread and maintain the disease.

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