The rule that generates the schedule
Never remove more than about a third of the height in a single pass.
Read forwards, that sets a height. Read backwards, it sets a frequency: if you cut at 40 mm, you mow when the lawn reaches around 60 mm, and how long that takes is growth.
Growth is temperature, moisture and feeding. In May it is five days; in a dry August it may be three weeks. A lawn mown on the first Sunday of every month is being scalped half the year and shaved pointlessly the rest.
The first cut
When the lawn is actively growing and the ground is firm enough to walk on without marking it. Not on a date, and not on the first warm weekend.
Highest setting the machine has. A second pass three to seven days later, one step lower. A badly overgrown lawn wants three passes, not two.
Collect rather than mulch: there is far more material than a deck can disperse, and left on the surface it mats over grass that is just starting.
Before you start, walk the lawn and pick up what winter left. A stone through a plastic deck ends the machine; a stone through a boundary wire ends the afternoon.
Spring, the busy period
Weekly, or every five days at the peak. Height coming down gradually toward your summer setting as the lawn thickens.
This is when mulching starts working: short, dry clippings fall into the sward and disappear, and the stops for the catcher end.
This is also the window for scarifying, once growth is properly established — not at the first green-up, but weeks after.
Summer, and drought
Raise the height. Longer leaf shades the soil, holds moisture and out-competes weed seedlings, and a lawn under heat stress that is also being cut short is a lawn being asked for something it does not have.
In a real drought, stop. An established lawn goes brown and dormant and recovers when rain returns; mowing it achieves nothing and the wheel traffic does harm.
If the lawn is being watered, water deeply and occasionally rather than a little every evening — the shallow habit keeps the roots at the surface, which is precisely the wrong place for them in July.
Autumn
A second flush of growth: back to weekly for a while, then tapering.
Leaves become the problem rather than the grass. A mower with a catcher picks them up and chops them, which is the easiest way to clear a lawn and produces excellent compost material. Left in place they smother.
This is the other renovation window, and the better of the two: warm soil, reliable moisture, less weed seed competing for the openings.
The last cut is when growth stops, slightly higher than the summer setting.
Winter
Almost nothing. An occasional topping in mild weather on ground that is not frozen or waterlogged, and otherwise keep off it — wheel traffic on saturated soil compacts, and the compaction is still there in June.
What the machine needs through all of this
A sharp blade, which is a consumable and not a permanent part. A deck scraped out after wet cuts rather than at the end of the season. And on a cordless machine, the knowledge that the first cut of the year uses far more energy than any figure on its listing was derived from.
The questions that keep coming in
When is the last cut of the year?
When growth has genuinely stopped, which in a mild autumn is later than most people expect. A final cut slightly higher than the summer setting leaves the lawn with some leaf going into winter, which is what you want.
Should I change the height through the year?
Yes, and it is free. Higher in heat and in drought, higher under trees, lower in the flush of spring and autumn growth when the lawn can afford it.
Does it matter which direction I mow in?
Varying it helps. Mowing the same line every week trains the grass to lie the same way and wears two tracks where the wheels run. Alternating by ninety degrees between cuts is enough.
Last reviewed 26 September 2026