Can You Cut Grass With Morning Dew? | What Is Best Time To Mow Lawn?
One of the most common tasks you perform in the yard during the summer months is cutting the grass. Regular lawn mowing can promote greater growth and improve tolerance for drought-like situations, in addition to assisting in ensuring a robust root system. A well-timed cut can do wonders for your lawn if your schedule is somewhat flexible.
But is there a best time of day to mow the lawn to keep it lush and healthy? We will find the answer to this question in this post.
Can You Cut Grass With Morning Dew?
There are many reasons to love the morning, like the crisp freshness of the air and the rejuvenating sensation of a good night’s sleep. If you also enjoy mowing, you might want to greet your day with a morning mow. However, can you cut grass that is still wet from morning dew?
Mowing wet grass too soon can result in ruts, clumping, settling, clogging of your mower, and root damage to your lawn. Dewy grass can cause serious damage to the lawn, your mower, thus resulting in the mower to not start, or even you if you cut it. Instead, it would help if you tried to mow your lawn between the hours of 8 and 11 am in the middle of the day or between 4 and 6 pm in the late afternoon.
Dangers Of Mowing Wet Grass
1. Can Damage Your Lawn
When wet, the water’s weight on the grass prevents it from standing upright. As a result, the grass is not cleanly mowed but rather torn through by the mower blades. When the grass is moist, the soil is also damp. Compaction of the soil occurs when a large lawn mower is used on moist ground, which prevents oxygen from reaching the roots.
Additionally, the wheels can create unsightly ruts in damp terrain. Cutting wet grass often turns into clumps. These sizable clumps of grass clippings are left behind by your lawn mower, obstructing the growing grass from air, water, and sunlight.
2. Can Damage Your Mower
Wet grass clumps are bad for your lawn as well. Additionally, they block the mower blades, which slows them down and requires more effort from the engine to turn. Due to their lower torque than gas lawnmowers, electric lawnmowers frequently have trouble cutting through wet grass.
Additionally, it will be much more difficult for you to clean the mower because the damp grass will adhere to the underbelly. Additionally, all that moisture can cause the mower’s blades and other metal components to rust.
3. Disease Can Spread
Your lawn will become more vulnerable to fungal infections due to those tears in the grass blades. Torn grass and standing water almost always result in lawn disease since fungi prefer damp environments.
In particular, if you just mowed the lawn while it was damp, keep an eye out for certain typical lawn fungi like:
- Brown patch: makes brown grass ring in a distorted manner.
- Anthracnose: develops reddish-brown patches
- Red thread: causes reddish fungal strands to grow on the tops of grass blades.
- Leaf spot: produces little brown patches with darker brown or reddish borders.
If left untreated, these and other lawn diseases can damage your grass whether it is bermuda, zoysia or any other grass type and possibly kill sizable portions of it.
4. You Can Get Hurt
The dangers associated with mowing damp grass to your safety may be the most significant threats. You put yourself at risk of electrocution if you use an electric mower. Especially if you end up shaking an extension cord across the damp grass. Additionally, if you are using a push mower, you run the risk of slipping and falling right next to a harsh metal blade.
What Is The Best Time Of The Day To Mow The Lawn
1. Mid Morning: 8am-11am
Even though this is not an unbreakable rule, most experts concur that the best time to mow your lawn is in the middle of the morning, after the dew has dried and before the sun reaches its hottest point. By cutting your grass at this time, you give it time to recover before dusk and stay out of the heat and any issues it might cause.
2. Late Afternoon: 4 pm-6 pm
By mowing in the late afternoon, you can avoid the humid morning air and the hot midday sun, but your lawn won’t have much time to recuperate before dusk. It is still a good backup option for those who work in the middle of the morning.
What Is The Worst Time Of The Day To Mow The Lawn
1. Early Morning: 6am-8am
It is not advised to mow in the early morning hours while the grass is still moist with dew, as we have previously covered in some detail above. By doing this, you run the risk of harming both your lawn and lawnmower.
2. Midday: 2 pm-4 pm
Even if it would be safe to mow your lawn in the afternoon, you might want to hold off a little bit longer if you want to have the best lawn in the neighborhood. The afternoon sun is the hottest of the day, which could cause you and your lawn to get burned. However, some professionals advise that you should only cut the top third of the grass in order to prevent scorching your lawn.
3. Late Evenings
Because the grass will become wet again as the sun sets, evening mowing entails many of the same dangers as morning mowing. Additionally, there won’t be enough time for your lawn to recover before the evening chill arrives.
Tips To Mow Grass With Morning Dew
- Increase the height of your blades to lessen the stress on your grass and equipment.
- You may lighten the load on your mower by reducing the speed.
- Take periodic breaks to inspect the device, clean the blades, and remove any obstructions that may be developing. Prior to doing this, make sure the machine is off.
- Less grass will be cut with each pass if you narrow the swatch.
- Slip-resistant footwear will give you more firm footing when using a push mower. A sensible move might be to delay going up any hills for now.
- To prevent mold, mildew, and other fungus-related issues, rake up wet clippings.
- Allow your machine to dry out completely before putting it away. Also, make sure to clean off any grass clippings that may have gotten stuck in places that are difficult to see.
Conclusion
After everything is said and done, if you want healthy, green grass, you should steer clear of mowing in the morning due to dew, the sun, condensation and in the afternoon due to sunlight. Additionally, if at all possible, schedule your landscaping for mid-morning; if that is not possible, strive to mow in the late afternoon.
Never cut more than a third of the grass’s length when mowing it, regardless of the time of day. By doing this, you can be sure that you’ll never cut the grass too short, especially when cutting long grass. Now that you know this, you can cut your grass without damaging it, your mower, or even yourself. But if you must, be sure to do it correctly by using the advice from the above section.
