Deciding whether to get involved in lawn mulching or not is a question that most of the UK gardeners will be asking themselves at the beginning of the grass growing season.
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What is Mulching?
Lawn mulching is recycling grass clippings so that they are added to the top layer of turf. They perform the job of protecting the soil by keeping it moist and preventing the growth of weeds. This produces a greener and healthier grass. Mulching will improve the content of the soil, and therefore less thatch will develop.
Make a note that it’s never good to lawn mulch at the beginning or end of the season as decomposition is slow due to the climate.
Once spring and summer arrive, you can leave the clippings on the lawn as mulch. No matter what you might be told by others, thatch and mulch are not the same thing. Clippings do not cause thatch to develop either.
Lawn mulch clippings comprise of around 90% water, so they will start the decomposition process almost immediately. They will slowly decompose and then release nutrients to the soil so that the lawn has up to 30% of all the nutrients that it needs. In addition nitrogen will be added to the soil.
Mulching Lawn Mowers
When you are looking for a new lawn mower to buy, don’t forget to ask about mulching. It is a waste of a good opportunity to not mulch your lawn with a nutrient that it needs and relies upon during the growing season.
Fortunately, the new style mulching lawnmowers can perform both tasks of collecting and depositing mulch. This is good news as it’s not always the right time to mulch your lawn, due to the amount of rain that we receive in the UK. What mulching lawnmowers do to help is to chop the clippings into smaller particles and then push them into the turf so that they aren’t visible. You don’t have any grass to empty which means no worrying about how to dispose of your grass – no clandestine visits to secretly stuff it into local rubbish bins or needing to visit the tip.
In summary we recommend that you ask your lawnmower retailer for advice on lawn mulching and mulching lawnmowers. If you have any questions, you can call us on 01452 616169.