Clean Lake Tip - Raise the Blade

For those who tend lawns, there are still a few more weeks until mowing season shifts to raking season. As such, there is time to make simple yet impactful changes to your lawn maintenance that will benefit soil health, water quality, and save you time.

Grass is the largest irrigated crop in the US—homes, golf courses, and parks grow more acres of grass than the acreage of corn, wheat, and orchards combined. This comes with high water demand and low water retention: compared to prairie grasses and other natural land cover types, lawn grass supports poor soil and results in runoff. While still better at retaining water than impervious surface like pavement, American lawns have a lot of room for improvement.

If you have a grass lawn and want to keep it that way, there are management practices that you can adopt to reduce runoff and promote water quality. Consider Raising the Blade to at least three inches. This allows roots to grow deeper, as grass can divert energy to extending roots rather than re-growing the cut blades. Deeper roots aerate the soil and improves capacity for water retention. Raise the blade to a point where you’re removing less than 1/3 of the grass blade when mowing. This reduces stress to your lawn, which helps it stay green and lowers water demand. Leave the grass clippings where they fall after mowing—they will help fertilize the grass naturally as they decompose, foster a healthier lawn, and save you time!

Longer grass and aerated soil capture rainwater that has picked up pollutants on the ground. As the water soaks in, nutrients and other forms of pollution are filtered by the soil. This cleanses the water that soaks in and reduces stormwater runoff from the surface, helping to make our waterways cleaner. Not only does the simple act of raising the blade improve water quality, but it also facilitates a lusher, more drought-resistant lawn, with slightly longer grasses shading out weeds.

Are you ready to Raise the Blade on your next mowing venture? If so, you can enter to win a free mulching mower from LCC and our Lawn to Lake program partners (Composting Association of Vermont, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Lake Champlain Basin Program, the Lake Champlain Sea Grant/UVM Extension, and Vermont Agency of Natural Resources). But hurry—the drawing for the winner is October 18, 2023