Will prices change your lawn mowing habits?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I get bitten by mosquitoes less when the grass is kept mowed. In the early morning and evening I get bitten more when working in the vegetable garden than when on the lawn. That is because the taller plants give the mosquitoes more places to hideout under leaves during the hot daylight hours. I figure a taller lawn would also harbor more mosquitoes. So to me one of the reasons for lawn is to reduce mosquito bites. I turned on the radio this morning and heard a news story about both West Nile virus and St Louis encephalitis. In the suburbs here people have to be concerned about both ticks and chiggers, but those are not a problem in the city.

[Ima saver]

We live on 2 acres of all grass. We cut the grass about once a week. It does cost more in gasoline to cut grass than it used to. We are in a very nice subdivision so we must keep our yard nice!!

[mom-from-missouri]

For the past 2 years, I mowed every Tuesday. Now, I mow every 10-12 days. It takes about 8 gallons to mow, even though I am mowing less this year (we enlarged the hayfields by about 6 feet in the front, side and behind our arena and barn). Should get more hay and less mowing....

[JimInOK]

No change here. We have a bermuda lawn that is pretty tough, but to really keep the grass healthy it needs a cut every 5-7 days. I don't like to take off too much in a mowing as it stresses the grass, which causes more expensive problems like making it easier for weeds and crabgrass to infiltrate. Besides, I mow an acre or maybe a little more and it costs me about $4.50/mowing at $3.89/gallon. That's about $25-30/month, compared to about $20 last year and $12.50 the year before. I'm not too concerned about that.

[JimInOK]

I have to keep watering our lawn everyday, and trimming it weekly. Otherwise our neighbors might think our house is in Foreclosure. Then well get people knocking in to our doors all the time wanting to buy it or sell it for us.

There are beautiful alternative grasses that require much less water that you might want to consider. I had a fescue lawn when we first moved in and it required tons of water in the Oklahoma heat to stay alive and healthy. Finally got sick of the water bills and removed enough trees to allow enough light for bermuda to get established. Now I hardly ever have to supply more water than it gets by rainfall. We had about 60 blackjack oak trees on our acre+ and took out half of them. We did it strategically and still have trees spaced very nicely around the entire lot. The result was a much prettier landscape, and also one that requires much less time and resources to maintain.

[osadg]

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who still supports the push mower!