How Tall Should My Grass Be?

Keeping your grass at a healthy height is important to ensure that your lawn stays green and alive. If you keep your lawn too short, it won’t all be able to properly photosynthesize. However, if your grass grows too tall, the strands look unkempt and can smother each other. Either way, you can be left with brown spots of dead grass in your yard.

To avoid this, you can keep your lawn at a specific height, but the height of your grass shouldn’t be the same each season. Depending on the typical weather of the season, your grass may need to be taller or shorter. It may not sound like much, but an inch or two can make a real difference.

HOW TALL SHOULD THE GRASS BE EACH SEASON?

When your grass hits 3.5 to 4 inches, it’s time to cut it. At that point, it becomes a sanctuary for pests at any time of the year. Strands of grass even begin competing for the nutrients they need to keep growing, starving and drowning each other. This will lead to brown spots that no one wants to see in their yard.

WINTER

Winter is coming, and it’s coming fast. Despite common belief, grass does grow in the winter, albeit a bit slower depending on the type of grass your lawn is made up of. Because it grows slowly and will experience higher moisture in the air and snowfall, it will survive being shorter than it should be in other seasons.

The ideal height is 2 to 2.5 inches. Anything higher, and you’ll attract bugs and pests that will make homes in your lawn to stay warm. This will lead to infestations and diseases that can kill the grass on your lawn.

To make sure that your lawn grows at a healthy rate for the winter, not too little or too much, fertilize in the fall. Fertilize in the winter and it will grow too fast, making it a haven for pests, and it will need more water than winter offers to survive. Looking for the perfect fertilizer or topsoil? Your local Pioneer Landscaping Center has you covered.

SPRING

Coming out of winter, you’re going to see a lot of winter burn on the tips of your grass, and to deal with that, you need to cut the tips off pretty soon. What height you cut down too depends on what kind of grass you have.

If you have cool-season grass, a higher height of 3 inches is pretty good. If your lawn grew a bit over the winter, it doesn’t all need to go away. If you have warm-season grass, it’s going to grow faster in the spring than cool-season grass. This type should be cut down to 1.5 inches, to give it time to grow before it gets too high.

SUMMER

Like with the temperature of the season, your grass will grow even faster and higher. This affects how tall your grass should be. During the summer though, the heat turns most places into safe havens for pests and diseases that aren’t in other seasons. So during the summer, you can let your grass grow a bit higher. 3 to 3.5 inches is far better for most grasses, with some like tall fescue and perennial ryegrass growing past 4 inches before needing to be cut.

During the summer, you’ll likely have to cut your lawn regularly, so if you have warm-season grass that will grow faster than most, you will be safe to cut it down to 2.5. That will give it time and room to grow before you need to cut it again.

FALL

In the fall, you need to time when you cut your lawn to prepare for winter. Not only is this when you need to fertilize your lawn, but you also need to keep it shorter than usual. Keep it around 2.5 inches, so when the first frost of winter comes, your grass doesn’t get matted together.

GET WHAT YOU NEED FOR YOUR GRASS AT PIONEER LANDSCAPING CENTERS

If you have a lawn, you should already have a lawnmower, but if you only use the big bulking machine to cut your grass, you can cut the grass shorter than you mean to. When you just have those patches you can use tools like shears and clippers that your local Pioneer Landscaping Center carries.

And with winter coming, you’re entering your last chance to fertilize your lawn. To find the right topsoil, mulch, or anything else you may need, contact your local representative for help.