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If you pay attention to your lawn over the growing season, you’ll notice the growth rate isn’t constant which is why it’s difficult to figure out how often to mow your lawn. The folks at the University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources studied grasses commonly used in North American lawns and generated the graph below to summarize their results.
It was clear that no matter where you are, your grass growth rates will vary over the lawn mowing season.
They grouped the grasses by behavior, into northern cooler climates and southern warmer climates. Read on or watch the video for the mow-down. It’s important to note the graph from UCIPM is a blended result of the entire country – so there’s a little transformation required to align it to your actual latitude. So how often should you mow your lawn? The answer is, it really depends!
How often to mow your lawn, explained!
How Often to Mow Your Lawn in Cooler Northern Grass States
As you can see in the graph above, cooler northern lawns exhibit early and late season growth spikes while slowing down dramatically during the peak heat of midsummer.
During the peaks, you’ll want to mow weekly to keep your lawn looking sharp and avoid overgrowth. During the troughs, you’re safe mowing every other week or even less.
For customers in places like Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, or Ohio your peak growth will occur from late April to mid June. It’ll then slow down as peak heat sets in – typically through the middle of August when the second growth spike kicks off and goes until the end of October.
How Often to Mow Your Lawn in Warmer Southern Grass States
Grasses adapted to warmer climates of the sun belt have different behavior; with a single longer spike in growth rates that is aligned with the peaks of summer (and often, humidity).
These grasses thrive during the warmest temperatures. Our customers in Florida, South Carolina or Texas typically have a single stretch of weekly mowing from late May to early September. Outside this window, most customers toggle to bi-weekly mowing to save money.
During the winter months, grasses go dormant if temperatures stay below 55 degrees. If they hover at 55 or above, customers generally get monthly service to keep things looking clean.
So Do I Book Weekly Or Bi-Weekly?
Your lawn doesn’t fit in a box, so neither should your lawn mowing service.
When you book recurring lawn mowing with LawnGuru you get the best of both worlds.
You can easily change the frequency from weekly to bi-weekly or even monthly. During the winter we automatically pause or switch to monthly for recurring mowing customers.
You can also just book weekly and use the SKIP feature in app or online to avoid unwanted cuts and save money. This is a big part of why we bill per service rather than charging a fixed monthly rate and why over 40,000 customers trust LawnGuru with their mowing service. If you still don’t now how often to mow your lawn, leave it to the professionals and your lawn will be in good hands!
