riding mower and not damaging lawn

[razielle]

Hello,
I just bought a lawn tractor and have never even driven one before.
So this is probably a silly question, but do I need to do anything special to keep my lawn healthy when mowing it?
The property had been vacant for some time, so neighborhood kids had been riding their ATVs around our backyard, tearing up the lawn pretty badly in some spots.
I would like to reduce further damage while I work to get the lawn healthy again.

I was thinking along the lines of:

• mowing length-wise one week, alternating to go width-wise the next week
• does time of day matter for preventing damage? (morning dew, sun intensity,etc.)
• I saw someone mention making a Y-turn. So when i turn at the end of a row I mowed, should I do a Y turn instead of a U?

Thanks for any tips or advice!

 

[exotion]

All of the above and mow tall

 

[gfp55]

Your list should work for you just fine and over time your lawn will look better. As far as what time is best, lawn mowing companies will cut grass in just about any conditions and they get good results. But they are trying to cut as many acres of grass as they can in the daylight they have, so they will cut wet grass from (morning dew) to get the job done. You have the option to cut it when you want. If you cut your grass when it is dry you will not have as much trouble will wet grass sticking to the bottom of your mower deck. I wish you luck with your yard and I hope you keep us updated and maybe you can share some pictures of your lawn.

 

[bertsmobile1]

The lawn will handle early morning cutting better than the mower will, particularly if you are mulching and I would recommend mulching.
And as already. mow long.

 

[Ric]

Hello,
I just bought a lawn tractor and have never even driven one before.
So this is probably a silly question, but do I need to do anything special to keep my lawn healthy when mowing it?
The property had been vacant for some time, so neighborhood kids had been riding their ATVs around our backyard, tearing up the lawn pretty badly in some spots.
I would like to reduce further damage while I work to get the lawn healthy again.

I was thinking along the lines of:

• mowing length-wise one week, alternating to go width-wise the next week
• does time of day matter for preventing damage? (morning dew, sun intensity,etc.)
• I saw someone mention making a Y-turn. So when i turn at the end of a row I mowed, should I do a Y turn instead of a U?

Thanks for any tips or advice!

The information you give is pretty sketchy. You say you purchased a lawn tractor, well what type of lawn tractor are we talking about? All of the above will work but how necessary they are is up to you.
Alternating directions is a good thing to do but depending on the structures and obstacles you have can be a problem for a lawn tractor and may not be necessary. The Y turn you mentioned is basically used to prevent wheel spin and turf damage and wheel rut with a ZTR mower, not that you can't use the Y turn with a lawn tractor but you'll be spending a lot more time mowing than necessary, IMO you would be better to set up some type of pattern to use.
Everyone says to cut tall which I think is ill advised and don't agree with because all grass types St. Augustine, Bahia, Fescue, etc etc have different cutting heights so without knowing the type I can't tell you how high or low to cut.

 

[razielle]

Thanks for all the replies!
I bought a Husqvarna GT48XLS with 80 hours on it.
As for the type of grass -- no idea!
I will try to get some photos of the lawn, because now that I am thinking about it, I'm a bit eager to see how good I can get my Before and After -- because the "before" is pretty bad!!

 

[rarebear]

Mowing late in the day (around 7:00 pm) is best...

One the grass had all day to dry..
Two the grass is not stressed being in the hot sun after having the blades torn in two, it has the cool evening to heal its cuts..

Down here it is also a little cool in early evening and less sun on me than high noon

 

[razielle]

Hi gfp55,
Here are photos of my lawn after my first time mowing it. I spent about 25 hours clearing debris and tree limbs from the yard before I could mow, and there's still the remnants of a long-forgotten garden area that I need to clean up a bit more before I can drive over it, but it's looking much better than it did two weeks ago. It was so bad before that when I started clearing away the weeds and vines, I found an old rusty swingset was buried under there! The dirt patches are from ATV riders that I had to ask to stop driving around my lawn.
Oh, I also found out my mower has only 8 hours on it, not 80. Evidently it shows the hours in 1/10ths, so that made me happy.