In lawn mowing, what is the advantage and disadvantage of mulching the grass vs. bagging the grass?

Answer 1

You can think of bagging your grass like vacuuming your carpet. It will give your yard a cleaner look. The only time you should bag is if you are looking to impress someone that is visiting your house. The reason for this is because bagging will not only suck up all the grass clippings that provide nitrogen for your newly cut lawn, but some of your precious top soil as well. Leaving mulched clippings can reduce the amount of nitrogen needed to fertilize your lawn by up to 25%. What does that mean? You can save money on the fertilizer you don't have to buy.

Another misconception about grass clippings is that it will turn into thatch. This is false! Grass clippings usually break down relatively quick. What is thatch? It is a brownish layer of organic debris found between the soil and the grass leaves. All great lawns have some thatch, but too much is bad.

When should you bag?

Only when you are impressing company. A few times definitely won't hurt.

Answer 2

Mulching Vs Bagging

Answer 3

All mulching does is cut the grass in very tiny pieces and puts it back into your lawn. The idea here is that it is supposed to fertilize your lawn. This works to a point. But if your grass is just too Long or the blase is anything less than very sharp, then you will just put all the grass back onto your lawn that gets embedded within the Grass roots and will turn your lawn partially brown with the dead grass by the fall.

if you bag it, you keep your lawn looking great both now as well as the future. Is it more work? sure, but in the end it will be worth it.

Answer 4

Mulching provides nutrients back to the soil from the cut grass. Were as bagging will only cause those nutrients to be thrown away. Also never cut more than 1/3 of the length of grass. Mulching is also alot easier in my opinion because you don't have to wrestle with the bag.

Answer 5

In my childhood mowing days I remember mulching being easier, because you did not have to empty the bag into a compost pile or other area. But by using a bag, instead of mulching, I did not return any remains of "crab grass" or other weeds to the soil for further growth and spreading. I also rembering using the bag--drying out the lawn faster though if spriklers/fertilizer were not used.

Answer 6

Mulching cuts the grass into little bitty pieces that add nutrients back into the growing grass. The down side is if it's a lawn you use, you've got a bunch of clippings to track into the house. I stay with bagging. I'd rather add the nutrients to the dump.

Answer 7

I don't agree with the first poster. Always mulch it if you can, because it puts nutrients back into the soil and it's less work. You should not mulch it when you cut your grass for the first time of the year, or if it is particularly wet and heavy. The excess grass will not dry fast enough and it could kill your newly sprouted spring grass underneath. The same goes for newly seeded grass - do not mulch.

Answer 8

Mulching returns the grass clippings and the nutrients contained in the clippings back to the lawn. Bagging is beneficial if you intend to compost, otherwise it just creates garbage for the landfill.

Answer 9

The advantage of bagging is no clippings are left on your freshly mowed lawn. But there's a trade-off. You have to fertilize in order to prevent your lawn from slowly starving itself to death. In fact, weeds will find it easier to thrive if you bag the clippings and don't fertilize. And with fertilizer comes all the issues, and expense, tied to its use. The advantage of mulching is there's no bags to mess with, no fertilizing required (or at least very rarely) and no disposal. Some people wrongly think clippings lead to thatch. Clippings are fertilizer for the next growth cycle, that's all. I used to run a grounds maintenance service, and give bags and bags of clippings to an old fellow with a garden. He'd spread them out between the rows. Had the biggest flowers and berries in town. But we had to regularly fertilize those lawns to keep them healthy, at least quarterly.

Answer 10

mulching the grass will make your grass healthier, bag it and you stop the natural cycle of the grass absorbing its dead grass nutrients