Lawn mowing

It's a Sunday afternoon in June. The lawn should have been mown on Wednesday, but it rained, and then it became Thursday and Friday, and now the grass is so tall that the mower gets stuck and leaves streaks of clippings you have to rake up afterwards. Next weekend you're away. The week after, the grass is even longer.

Mowing a lawn isn't difficult work. It's work that has to happen at the right time, and it's precisely that timing that's difficult when you have a job.

What we actually do

We come on a fixed day of the week under an ongoing arrangement, and do the same job every time.

• Mowing the whole lawn, with the cutting height adjusted to the season. Higher during warm, dry spells, because longer blades shade the soil and retain moisture. Lower in May and September when growth is strong and moisture is good.
• Alternating the mowing direction from time to time. Always mowing the same way makes the grass lie in that direction and thin out along the tracks. Changing direction keeps the lawn denser.
• The edges. Against beds, paving, walls, fences and tree trunks. It's the edges that decide whether a garden looks well kept. A mown lawn with shaggy edges looks unfinished — a lawn with sharp edges looks tended even when the grass is a little long.
• Trimming around obstacles such as play equipment, tables and trampolines.
• Clearing up. Clippings are swept off paving, terraces and driveways, and taken away — or added to your compost by arrangement. Grass left lying on paving discolours it, and that's a stain that stays.
• A note if we notice something. Moss in shaded areas, drought damage, fungus or worn footpaths. We don't act on it without agreement, but you should know about it.

Why it pays off

The most important rule in lawn care is the one-third rule: never cut away more than a third of the blade's length at a time. Mow an overgrown lawn down to normal height, and the grass is shocked — it spends its energy repairing the foliage instead of the roots, turns yellow for a few days and lets in weeds and moss. That's the one mechanism that separates a dense, green lawn from a patchy one.

Regularity, then, isn't a question of aesthetics but of plant health. And regularity is exactly what's hard to achieve yourself in May and June, when the grass grows fastest and the weather decides your weekends.

Finally, the practical side: a lawn mown every week through the season takes less time per visit than one mown every other week. The hourly rate stays the same — there are simply fewer hours.

How often should you have it done?

Every 7 to 10 days from May to September. A little less often in dry July weeks when the grass stands still, a little more often in May and after a rainy spell.

How long does it take?

Around 2 hours for a normal garden with edges and a few obstacles. We assess the area and access at the inspection and give you a fixed price before the season starts.

Book an inspection for lawn mowing — an ongoing arrangement through the season or single visits, as you prefer.