Practice Grasscycling
Fact
Your lawn produces more valuable resources than you may think. One thousand square feet of bluegrass lawn generates about 200 pounds of clippings annually. About 3/4 of those clippings is water. Instead of tossing them in the trash, use them to help fertilize your lawn. Clippings break down quickly and encourage beneficial microorganisms and earthworms.
Get Started
- Use a mulching mower, which returns the grass clippings to your lawn
- Use grass clippings in your compost pile
- For the best mulch, be sure to clip your grass at the appropriate height for its type. For example, you should mow Kentucky bluegrass when it is 1.5 to 2.5 inches high and tall Fescue at two to three inches.
Become a Pro
- Offer to share your mulching mower with a friend who has a traditional mower
- If you have extra grass clippings from your lawn, share them with others as an effective fertilizer for their yards
- Spread the word! Yard waste makes up 20 percent of materials sent to landfills annually. When you see a neighbor mowing, be sure to share with them the benefits of mulching
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Judy
posted on June 11th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I ‘so’ want to stop and pick up all the bags of cut grass sitting on the sides of the roads…. but I don’t. Maybe just helping to spread the word about making your own compost will the average person cut the wastefulness…
margaret
posted on August 19th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
i always save my grass and leaves i have a mulching mower. i dont rake i mow and add it to my compost pile and garden. i start a new bed by laying think news paper down then add lots of grass clipping and leaves clipping. let set till spring then till up and there ya go , a new garden bed, thats fertile and loaded with earth worms.
Deb
posted on October 13th, 2010 at 10:22 am
This year I’m going to mow my leaves into my lawn. It might require several mowings with the mower height adjsusted to high, but I want to see if adding the leaves alng with the grass clippings will make a different this spring.