How to Make Patterns When Cutting Grass
If you've been to a ballpark, you've seen it: grass grown and mowed into perfect stripes or a checkerboard pattern. Grass striping is not as complicated as it seems. The average homeowner can recreate this pattern in his own lawn. With just a little extra time and effort, you can have a ballpark-quality lawn and be the envy of the neighborhood.
Decide on what pattern you want your lawn to reflect. The striping effect is caused by the light hitting the blades of grass in different ways, depending on which way the blade is laying. Pick good directions for your mower to easily travel over the lawn.
- If you've been to a ballpark, you've seen it: grass grown and mowed into perfect stripes or a checkerboard pattern.
- Pick good directions for your mower to easily travel over the lawn.
Begin in one corner of the lawn and mow a perfectly straight line until the opposite end of the lawn. Turn around somewhere off the pattern area so that the cutter won't effect the pattern design. Mow the next line exactly next to the first one, in the complete opposite direction.
Continue mowing in this manner until you have finished the entire lawn. Look over the lawn to see if the design is pleasing with stripes. If you decide that you prefer a checkerboard pattern, do the same actions over again, going across the whole lawn instead of up and down.
Make a diamond shaped design by mowing up and down stripes, and then going over the lawn a second time at a 45 degree angle. Alternately, you can simply do all stripes at an angle to the property.
- Begin in one corner of the lawn and mow a perfectly straight line until the opposite end of the lawn.
- Make a diamond shaped design by mowing up and down stripes, and then going over the lawn a second time at a 45 degree angle.
Mow around a tree or other permanent obstacle by mowing in a curve around the tree on the first stripe, then mowing a regular stripe the second pass. The second stripe will cover up the deviation in the first stripe.
Make A Straight Line When Cutting The Grass
Determine the vantage point from which people are most likely to view the lawn. It could be on a sidewalk or in an adjoining garden. Drive a small stake into the ground at that point, which should be off the lawn itself, and tie a string to it. It should just touch the string, and the string shouldn't bend. Keep the wheels at a fixed distance from the edge of the cut area. Cut another perpendicular line at the opposite end of the lawn, and then finish cutting the half of the lawn on the side of the line on which you've been working.
- Mow around a tree or other permanent obstacle by mowing in a curve around the tree on the first stripe, then mowing a regular stripe the second pass.
- Drive a small stake into the ground at that point, which should be off the lawn itself, and tie a string to it.
Tip
Longer grass will show this pattern much better than short grass.
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References
Tips
- Longer grass will show this pattern much better than short grass.
Writer Bio
Working in sunny Florida, Anne Baley has been writing professionally since 2009. Her home and lifestyle articles have been seen on Coldwell Banker and Gardening Know How. Baley has published a series of books teaching how to live a frugal life with style and panache.
