Lawn maintenance is a quite wide term, which encapsulates the activities like landscaping, lawn care, growing grass, cutting or mowing grass.

A layman may reckon that the lawn maintenance is a simple activity of just growing and mowing grass, but it isn't so. Lawn maintenance means meticulously grooming a lawn. It's not just growing or mowing grass, rather keeping a professional savvy about growing & cutting grass.

The two adverbs 'when' and 'how' are very important in lawn maintenance. They raise scores of questions like 'When should the grass be mowed? How frequently the grass be mowed? How high should the grass be cut? How low should grass be cut? How should the grass be mowed?'

These are not simple questions to answer. One needs to have professional knowledge on the subject and an unprofessional approach may prove insalubrious for a lawn.

When should the grass be mowed?

There are few important things that should be kept in mind before getting ready to mow the grass.

First, it should be made sure that the lawn is not damp or wet. One shouldn't try mowing even dewy grass. A damp or wet lawn may lead to lousy mowing by mower getting clogged with grass or bogging down. The mower may pull out the clumps of grass from the wet land. The simple solution in such cases is to wait and let the lawn fully dry.

Secondly, it's high time to mow when the grass has grown to at least a third past its mowing height.

How frequently the grass be mowed?

The frequency of mowing grass depends on the type of grass and season. The different grasses have different growing patterns and different peak growing seasons. They grow quickly in their respective peak growing seasons.

The warm season grasses flourish when temperatures exceed 80 degrees F. They grow very fast during summer and thus may need mowing every 3-4 days. The growth rate of these grasses may decline in the fall season and thus may only need mowing every other week. These grasses usually become brown and dormant depending on the drop in temperature in winter.

The cool season grasses, on other hand flourish in 60-75 degrees F. They are active in spring and fall months and thus may require mowing frequently. The growth rate of these grasses declines during hot and dry summers and they require less cutting. These grasses cannot bear hot summer and may also turn brown and dormant in extreme hot conditions, but the damp climate and higher elevations are very conducive for them. The bluegrass or fescue lawn grasses grow actively in spring. They should be mowed every three to four days during the spring and only once every seven to 10 days when their growth is stumbled by heat, drought or cold.

The grass grows fast in rainy season and thus requires to be mowed quite frequently.