Message Board - Soft Landscaping: Who removes their grass cuttings?

Hello, I just wanted to know the opinions of everyone with regards to grass cuttings. I mow my lawn regularly through the spring and summer and leave the clippings to feed the ground. But my nephew who is a greenkeeper informs me that the better grasses, those with fine leaves and are more tolerent of drought, prefer the ground to be less fertile, and that I should remove my clippings if I want a better lawn. What do you do, or what is your opinion. To leave or to collect, that is the question.

I always remove me grass cuttings and put them in the compost. I mix the clippings with kitchen waste and other garden waste and with a little turning over I get great compost after a year.

When cutting clients lawns I do what they ask. Some prefer the clippings left on the ground, others prefer them boxed off. i would say, judging purely by looks, that the lawns I take the clippings away from have a finer appearance, but they aren't as green as the lawns where the clippings are returned. I guess because they are not getting some nutrients back from the grass cuttings.

During a dry period when the grass isn't growing much I let the cuttings return to the ground. In early spring when the grass is rampant I always box off the cuttings and add them to the compost.

In fact when the compost is getting a bit low I always box off the cuttings and add them to the compost. I never add fertiliser to my lawn as it only makes the grass grow quicker, and mowing once a week is more than enough in my book.

My lawns only a rough patch, so I just let the clipping fly. The only annoying thing about that is if its wet or dewy the following day, the grass cuttings stick to the soles of your shoes and you end up walking clumps pf cuttings through the house. My misses does her nut when I do that, you'd think I'd remembered by now and make sure it doesn't happen again, but it probably will.

Grass cuttings are great for the compost, but only if you haven't applied a pesticide to your lawn recently. If you have applied things like a broad leaf weed killer, insecticide, or fungicide, it may still be active in the grass leaf.

If you put the cuttings on your compost and you then intend to use your compost on your vegetable garden you may be adding unwanted chemicals to your vegetable patch. I would only put grass cuttins on the compost about two to three weeks after applying an pesticide to the lawn. The cuttings that come off during the two to three week period can be used in a seperate compost that can be used for anything other than food produce.

If we do have the drought everyone is speaking about, I would advise raising the cutting height of your mower and returning the clippings, as they will provide a cover within the canopy of the grass, which will help stop the ground from drying out.

Ordinarily I would ecommend collecting your cuttings, but as gardeners we have to adapt to the changing weather patterns, hence my suggestion that you should not pick up your grass cuttings if we do indeed have a drought.

I mowed my lawn for the first time this year last weekend. I took boxes and boxes of cuttings off the lawn. I put them on my compost, which now looks like a mountain of grass cuttings. It will rot down in time, and makes a good compost.

I always remove the clippings on a lawn, it looks neater and doesn't stick to your shoes when the grass is wet, and you tend to get better grasses grow in soils with low fertility.