# Should I mow my lawn before winter



## Guest (Sep 26, 2008)

Hi! First time lawn owner here. Sod seems to have taken well and now it's looking pretty long. The blades are flopping over. It's got a serious shag carpet look and feel to it now.

Should I mow the thing before the first frost? Or leave it long for the winter?


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Mow it...it will resist disease better (according to what I have read)

Dave


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Mow it. With or without a mulching blade, the ground will appreciate the composting grass in the spring.

Peace, Mooh.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Since our great little city banned all use of pesticides and control I may as well burn whats left of mine, which is mainly just a patch of dead and dying weeds.


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## bagpipe (Sep 19, 2006)

Ian, your new lawn is fine. Pop over and mow mine instead. M'kay? Thanks! :smile:


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## Starbuck (Jun 15, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Since our great little city banned all use of pesticides and control I may as well burn whats left of mine, which is mainly just a patch of dead and dying weeds.


+1! My lawn is mostly weeds.... Anyone use that Natural lawn therapy with the grubs? But I'm afraid it would bring around other critters.


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## geezer (Apr 30, 2008)

I rarely mow my lawn.I just tell the guy nextdoor I like the natural meadow look.I think the deer like it when it's over 3 or 4 feet ,so they can sleep there and still be close to the garden.


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## RIFF WRATH (Jan 22, 2007)

ditto...I don't call mine a lawn.........I refer to it as a controlled natural growth
cheers everyojne and have a great weekend...........and you blue nosers.....better batton down the hatches for sunday


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

You mow them?


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## happydude (Oct 15, 2007)

City people are strange sometimes :tongue:

We've always left the lawn a little longer just before winter, as in not cutting right before snow but not leaving it too long either. I find that with our harsh winters, cutting it too low leaves it vulnerable while leaving it too long makes it harder to come back evenly with a good quick greening in the spring. I suppose my advice would be to find a happy medium, for what it's worth I'll be cutting mine tomorrow.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

happydude said:


> City people are strange sometimes :tongue:
> 
> We've always left the lawn a little longer just before winter, as in not cutting right before snow but not leaving it too long either. I find that with our harsh winters, cutting it too low leaves it vulnerable while leaving it too long makes it harder to come back evenly with a good quick greening in the spring. I suppose my advice would be to find a happy medium, for what it's worth I'll be cutting mine tomorrow.


I agree leaving it a little longer keeps a better snow cover on it too. Too short and a harsh winter with little snowfall takes it toll on it for sure.

When I was a kid everyone used to burn their lawns in the spring, and it was amazing how green and thick it quickly came back in.


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

Keep mowing as usual , it's still going to grow for a while yet . OK to leave it a bit longer but not too long or you'll be raking the hell out of it in the spring to get all the long dead stuff out of it .


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Since our great little city banned all use of pesticides and control I may as well burn whats left of mine, which is mainly just a patch of dead and dying weeds.


I don't understand this from anyone really. Maybe the cities failed to understand as well. There are two categories of chemicals, one is pesticides and the other is herbicides. 

Pesticides kill the bugs (or just make them loopy then the birds eat them, then they get loopy then they fall in the lake and the fish eat them and they get loopy and then some farmer snags that and feeds it to his kids).

Herbicides kill off the plants themselves. Herbicides (modern ones, not like agent orange) don't impact on insects the way pesticides do, they are usually plant hormonal and are species specific if I have understood what it is I have read over the years here and there are not toxic to things that are not plants.

I dunno, I just don't see how not killing the bugs is promoting weed growth unless the ban was very poorly thought out or implemented?

*edit*
d'oh maybe that was what you meant with "control" 

Oh and, any greenery that is winter hardy is so when the ground is wet. Lack of snow cover causes drying of the ground and that leads to winter die off. If you have a low snow situation happen and even a winter warm-up, give the lawn and garden a good soaking to keep the ground moist


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

keeperofthegood said:


> I don't understand this from anyone really. Maybe the cities failed to understand as well. There are two categories of chemicals, one is pesticides and the other is herbicides.
> 
> Pesticides kill the bugs (or just make them loopy then the birds eat them, then they get loopy then they fall in the lake and the fish eat them and they get loopy and then some farmer snags that and feeds it to his kids).
> 
> ...


I am not a lawn care expert or whatever the professional term is for them. All I know is that a few years back 3/4 of this city used a lawn care service and we had many, many very beautiful lawns to look at. All I see now is weeds and or dead lawns. The city of course will allow you to use them if you pay a per use fee. So to me it's nothing more than a cash grab clouded in a "we want to protect our environment" scam. Another one.


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## Guest (Sep 27, 2008)

I mowed it. Found enough online to convince me that letting the snow double over the grass can lead to dead spots. It gets packed down and matted. See: http://www.outdoorswithdave.com/landscaping/preparing_lawn_for_winter.htm

Derek, pity you're not my neighbour. I mowed his front lawn for him too.  (we have a tiny patch of shared grass)


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I've only mowed it before winter if it was long enough that I'd mow it if it was summer. But I never rake leaves in the fall. I do it in the spring, and the lawn always back nice & green.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

mow it.

that said, i pushed a mower for 7 hrs a day 5 days a week for 3 and a half months as my summer job


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## rippinglickfest (Jan 1, 2006)

*The Grass Roots*



Ripper said:


> I agree leaving it a little longer keeps a better snow cover on it too. Too short and a harsh winter with little snowfall takes it toll on it for sure.
> 
> When I was a kid everyone used to burn their lawns in the spring, and it was amazing how green and thick it quickly came back in.


You're right. If you cut it too short before the temperature drops.......the cold kills the roots.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2008)

rippinglickfest said:


> You're right. If you cut it too short before the temperature drops.......the cold kills the roots.


What's too short though? I have the mower set for about 4 cms. And on an observational note: I lived directly across from a golf course for the past year and they didn't really let their fairways and greens grow out before the Winter From Hell(tm) hit Ottawa. They didn't keep cutting much long after the season closed out but I'd say the fairway grass was no longer than 3 cm's headed in to winter, the greens tees even shorter.


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## rippinglickfest (Jan 1, 2006)

*Cold or Cold*

I guess there are a lot of variables that come into play here..........one thing for sure I'm further north and the winters are a lot harsher............usually. Two years ago we didnt have any snowfall that stayed until after christmas.......there was a lot of green around.


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

iaresee said:


> What's too short though? I have the mower set for about 4 cms. And on an observational note: I lived directly across from a golf course for the past year and they didn't really let their fairways and greens grow out before the Winter From Hell(tm) hit Ottawa. They didn't keep cutting much long after the season closed out but I'd say the fairway grass was no longer than 3 cm's headed in to winter, the greens tees even shorter.


This is a misunderstood thing about grass. There are as wide a diversity in grass as there is in apples or oranges. Golf courses use a bent grass that is low to the ground, and can maintain a very short height on that grass without damaging the rooting systems etc. 

Most home owner grass is a very tall grass by comparison, and most reviews I have read suggest 2 to 4 inches height to it HOWEVER it has also been a few years since I had to deal with that so there are likely new variatals out with their own "happy height" recomendations.

Winter is, from my experience, less likely to cause lawn damage than summer (and most of the damage was from unmulched or unrakes leaves). Nothing like shaving a lawn to 1cm when it is 40 centigrade to see a brown dust bowl show up! (Which was really one of the top 10 worst parts of living in the condo >.< when the president of the corp was a golfer and really had NO clue about grass)


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2008)

I never cut my grass shorter than 5 cms. and I often cut it at 6 or 7 cms. in the heat of the summer. If the grass is longer the ground is better shaded from the sun and is subject to less drying so the grass looks healthier with less water. However it is good to cut the grass before the snow falls. It is also good to pick up the leaves before the snow falls. Long grass and rotting dead leaves under the snow can both develop into snow mold over winter and that will definately harm your lawn more than exposing the root system to cold temperatures.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I never rake it & leave the leaves there over winter--and it's never hurt my lawn yet--in fact my lawn comes up greener than my neighbours who do rake theirs. It's all about the mulch. It also depends on how much snow we get over the winter--the more snow the greener this makes it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Whatever length you cut it, and whether it's good or bad for the grass, I have to say that when the snow finally melts to reveal all that long grass bent over and matted together like a biblical flood has just passed with some form of sewage spill being spread all over, it's bloody depressing. Just cut your grass so that it looks the way you'd like to see it when the snow goes away. I'm doing what I gather will be the last mow of the year this weekend.


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## nitehawk55 (Sep 19, 2007)

I have mowed as late as mid November depending on the weather . I suspect with this warm spell I'll have to do it again next week . I mow as normal and get most of the leavers off before the snow .


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