Cutting Your Mowing Time
By: S. V. Scott, Master Gardener

If you feel as though you spend too much time each year mowing the lawn, you may be right. Too often something that should be a pleasant routine becomes a tiresome chore you have to force yourself to do, or worse yet, force one of your children to do. If you've decided that life is too short to spend it chained to the lawn mower, here are some tips to make the job less time consuming.

First, decide exactly how much time you do want to spend on mowing. Is it an hour a week, or thirty minutes, or more or less than that? Take a careful look around and decide which areas really need lawn. Start there and mow for your allotted time only. Try to map your route so that you only go forward, never stopping and never backing up. If there is landscaping that you typically do a lot of fussy mowing around, leave it for now and concentrate on making your mowing path as efficient as possible.

When your time is up, take stock of what's left. If there are a lot of little 'islands' of shrubs or flower beds dotted here and there, see if you can consolidate them into just one or two large flowing borders, using mulch, ground covers, and other decorative plants. Are there yard ornaments standing alone that you have to trim or mow around? See if they don't look better incorporated into your new border. Bird baths especially benefit from a little light cover nearby, but of course leave nothing near enough or stout enough to hide or support a cat.

Are there shrubs or other plants that are too isolated to assimilate into a border? Can they be transplanted? If not, give them a really honed appraisal. Are they striking enough to stand on their own? If not, they may be best removed.

What about sparse or worn places where your mower kicks up a lot of dust and dirt? There may be too much shade, or the soil may be too poor to support a lawn. You might want a shady border there, or it might be a signal to enlarge a patio, or put down a permanent path.

Finally, if there's still too much mowing to do, what about leaving some of it 'rough,' like they do on golf courses? This approach might be effective in outlying, informal areas, particularly if you seed in some wildflowers. It's important to keep an area like this weed free, and the edges well trimmed so that it always looks deliberate, and not as though you simply forgot about it!

Combining disparate elements, (flower beds, shrubs and trees, ornaments) into a complete ensemble, while leaving uninterrupted sweeps of lawn that are easy to care for, provides a pleasing unity that looks thoughtful and natural. Most importantly, it may leave you time for the most critical job of all...enjoying your landscape!