A wet day moves the visit, it does not cancel it
Cutting saturated ground tears the turf and leaves ruts across the lawn, so if a yard is standing in water we come back rather than force it.
Service
Lawn mowing
Mowing is the part of the visit everything else is built around. We cut at a height that suits the grass and the time of year, which is what keeps a Florida lawn thick enough to hold its color and shade out most of its own weeds.
- Included in
- Every scheduled maintenance visit
- Usual frequency
- Weekly in the growing season, every other week when growth slows
- Grasses we cut
- St. Augustine, Bahia, Zoysia, Bermuda
- Booked with
- Edging, trimming and blowing off, on the same visit
01
The mowing visit
What a mowing visit includes
Mowing is not billed as a separate item and it does not arrive on its own. The four parts of the regular visit go together, and there is no version of the visit where one of them gets skipped to save time.
- The whole lawn is cut in one pass. Front, back, side strips and any patch of grass behind a gate, as long as we can reach it.
- The direction changes between visits. Mowing the same line every week presses the grass into a grain and wears ruts into soft ground, so we turn the pattern.
- Blades are kept sharp. A dull blade tears the leaf instead of cutting it, and a torn leaf tip browns off a day or so later.
- Clippings stay on the lawn. They break down and return nitrogen to the soil, which is the cheapest feeding a lawn ever gets.
- Hard surfaces are blown clean before we leave. Clippings do not go into the street and they do not go down a storm drain.
02
Cutting height
A Florida lawn should be cut high
The most common thing done to a lawn in this county is cutting it too short. It looks tidier for about four days and then the lawn spends the rest of the season recovering.
Grass feeds itself through its leaf. Take too much of the leaf off and the plant has to spend stored energy rebuilding it instead of putting roots down, and a lawn with shallow roots is the one that browns off first in May and lets weeds in through the gaps.
The rule we work to is that no more than a third of the blade height comes off in one cut. That is also the reason a schedule matters: a lawn left for three weeks in July cannot be brought back to height in one pass without scalping it.
Cutting high has a second effect that matters more here than it does further north. Taller grass shades its own soil, which keeps the ground cooler, holds moisture longer between storms and stops most weed seed from getting the light it needs to germinate.
Heights we work to
| Grass | Cut height |
|---|---|
| St. Augustine | 3.5 to 4 inches |
| Bahia | 3 to 4 inches |
| Zoysia | 2 to 2.5 inches |
| Bermuda | 1.5 to 2 inches |
St. Augustine is what most lawns in North Pinellas are, and it is the one that suffers most from being cut low. If you are not sure what you have, we will tell you when we look at the yard.
03
How often
How often the lawn needs cutting
Grass in this part of Florida does not grow at one speed all year, so a single fixed frequency does not suit it. We set the frequency to what the lawn is actually doing and change it when that changes.
| Time of year | What the grass is doing | Usual frequency |
|---|---|---|
| April to October | Heat and afternoon storms push hard growth. This is when a lawn gets away from you fastest, and a missed week shows. | Weekly |
| November to March | Cooler and drier. Growth slows right down and the lawn holds its shape for much longer between cuts. | Every other week |
| Any time | You are going away, you are hosting, you are selling the house, or the yard has simply got ahead of you. | A one time visit |
04
Rain and storms
What happens when it rains
Between June and September it rains most afternoons, which is normal here and is planned around rather than treated as a surprise.
Wet grass cuts badly
It clumps behind the deck, drops in mats that smother the grass underneath, and leaves a finish nobody would be happy with.
The growing season is the busy season
The same rain that stops a visit is what makes the lawn need one. This is why the schedule tightens to weekly from April.
05
The rest of the visit
Mowing goes out with three other jobs
These three happen on the same visit as the cut. Together they are what separates a mowed lawn from a maintained one.
Free quotes
Get the lawn on a schedule
Call us and we will come out, look at the grass you have and tell you what we would do and how often. There is no obligation once you have it.
Seven days a week, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Email cjackc.inc@gmail.com.