Cutting your lawn when it’s wet is never recommended if you plan on using an electric lawn mower. As the saying goes: water and electricity never mix! Apart from the obvious safety concerns regarding grass becoming slippery when wet, especially when cutting banks or slopes, mowing your lawn when it is wet can also damage your lawn and prevent it from looking neat and tidy.
Most homeowners in the UK like to collect the grass and dispose of the clippings as they cut the lawn, however when cutting the lawn when it’s wet provides a large challenge for most lawn mowers.
Most typical lawn mowers collect the grass by first cutting the grass with a blade, then by vacuuming it up from the ground in quick succession. Wet grass makes this very difficult, as it is much heavier than dry grass. This prevents the grass from being collected efficiently and often leads to grass being left on the ground which then requires the user to go around and rake up the leftover grass clippings from the lawn or blocking the underside of the deck or grass chute.
Wet grass is also more likely to clump. It sticks together more easily, again making it difficult for the lawn mower to propel the grass into the collection box. As it sticks together it can then clump around the collection box inlets, which then prevents grass from entering. This again results in more grass being left on the lawn leaving the garden looking untidy.
If you plan on adding stripes to your lawn then you will need to use a lawn mower with a roller. This adds another risk to the equation when mowing your lawn when wet – soil compaction. The heavy roller which flattens the grass to create the stripes can cause the spaces between the wet soil particles to become smaller, preventing essential water and oxygen from reaching the grassroots, preventing healthy grass growth.
Cutting the lawn when the grass is wet can also mean your lawn mower rips or tears the grass from the ground, rather than neatly cutting the tip of the grass blade. This can not only prevent your lawn from looking neat and tidy, but in extreme cases, it can also overly stress your grass causing it to turn yellow until it has recovered. If this is the case with your lawn, find out more about treating yellow grass here.
However, if you do need to cut your lawn when it is wet, then below are our top tips of important things to remember:
TOP TIPS:
We recommend you:
- Avoid operating your lawn mower in wet grass where feasible. Always wear substantial footwear and long trousers and do not operate the lawnmower when barefoot or wearing sandals.
-It is more important than ever to make sure your lawn mower's blade is sharp to ensure the grass is cut cleanly and quickly. It is recommended that you change your lawn mower blade at the start of each grass cutting season as a matter of course as part of your basic lawn mower maintenance.
-You will also need to clean your lawn mower much more thoroughly than cutting in dry conditions. Wet grass will stick the underside of your lawn mower much more easily, therefore you will need to scrape any grass clippings from the underside of the lawn mower off and clean out all the air inlets and filters. Before doing this you should ensure the lawn mower is disconnected from the mains electricity supply. Failure to remove this grass may result in reduced performance of your lawn mower when you go to use it next time when the grass has dried.
-Finally, you could always get a Flymo robot lawn mower which will cut automatically in the rain. We understand that the grass will still grow when it's raining and it can be impossible to get the lawnmower out. Our robot lawn mowers will cut in almost all conditions, keeping your grass pristine whilst also giving you more spare time.
