The old perennial question

[larkspur]

Should lawn clippings from a cylinder mower be left or collected in the grass box? Are there different times when either is appropriate?

[Suzie]

I have used grass cuttings when earthing up spuds, as a mulch on borders, added to my compost heap with an equal mix of scrumbled paper - so I'm in the 'collect them up' camp.

Besides, if you leave them on the ground they will stick to your wellies and get trampled around the kitchen and you will get told off

[Clive.]

Hello larkspur,
In 18 years of working where I do...a large country house garden..we have only used the grassbox on the smaller cylinder mower if the tennis court has been requested...and only a couple of times on the big 34" cylinder mower on the main lawns.

The "big mower" is set at about 3/4" and we let the clippings fly....it has enabled two of us...one with big mower, one with smaller 20" mower to complete cutting all the lawns by just after lunchtime on a Monday...our usual chosen day...starting 8-30am ish....
In the previous system going back 25 years ago the grass was boxed... 3 box fulls filled a sheet....sheet dragged into shrubbery and grass dumped...smelly rotting grass behind most shrubberies. It is the boxing that takes the time and grass mowing then i'm told was conducted over 3 days in between other tasks.

Stopping boxing grass allowed a reasonable finish in a reasonable time....leaving the rest of the week free to maintain everything else...

But....it must be regular mowing, the mower must be cleaned down well after as clippings can blow about and block cooling fins. A windy day calls for safety specs, again grass blowing up. The clippings if wet can pick up on shoes a bit.

We have a weight bar in lieu of weight of grassbox on the front of the big mower to maintain correct balance of machine preventing it being light at the front.

It works well on our heavy-ish soil which seems to "eat" up the clippings and the grass is a regular turf not anything super fine...

On sandier soil at home with finer grass the clippings seem to show up more...and seem to stay put on the top....so here the box stays on..

Clive.

[Suzie]

So would a good train of thought be? .....
Big lawn/park - box off
Small lawn/home - box on

And how lucky are you, Clive, to work at a large country house garden I would so so love to do that but I fear I'm too old now to change

[oldherbaceous]

At the big house i work at, it's a bit of both, but definately box on, on the front lawn where they play croquet.

At all the other gardens, it's box on.

I think the only problem that can arise in wetter years, is that you do seem to get a bigger build up of thatch.

It's never to late to change Susie, i only went into gardening a few years back, after nearly a life time in the building trade.

[larkspur]

Thanks for the replies, with over 1500m² to mow, my conscience is clear when I leave off the grass box, but will possibly need the scarifier in the autumn. As we are away quite a bit I sometimes have to use a ride-on as its got too long for the Atco to cope.

[Clive.]

There is generally great potential for increased thatch build up with letting clippings fly. It does seem that our quite ordinary type of grasses and the type of soil helps in the disappearance of the clippings. Also the expanse of lawn does come into the equation as a smaller area would perhaps lead to closer scrutiny of finish.??
A cylinder mower scissors off the blades of grass and as such it is a straight flat blade of grass that then falls flat to the ground....whilst a rotary mower can give the blades of grass a bit of a roughing up and it sometimes then seems to sit on the top of the grass re growth....

We do have sessions of scarifying..but only once in a few years and then generally only the smaller lawns.

Clive.