Mowing lawn that you've let get too tall.

[rwmastel 47]

I have a 48" side discharge and I'm thinking, for those times where the lawn has grown tall for whatever reason, I might want to have a rear discharge deck with a mulching kit.  That way, the extra long clippings would lay behind the mower and I could tow my 50" lawn sweeper and clean them up as I mow.  Is this recommended for tall grass, or even sensible?  I know it means lots of trips to the grass dumping spot, but I can't always mow in a pattern where the side discharge always throws to a previously mowed spot.  I have to throw into areas where the grass is still tall.  Also, is there a mulching kit that can be put on a 48" side discharge deck?

Thanks for your thoughts and comments!

[rwmastel 47]

Is there and easy and safe way to burn grass clippings?  I'm thinking that dumping them on a small fire would smother the fire.

[The Tuul Crib 7,336]

Compost! Green grass breaks down fast!

[midpack 862]

I use a rear discharge with a tow behind sweeper all the time now. makes the yard look very nice

 

not sure it would solve a "too tall grass" problem though. After I got home from vacation (3 weeks between cuts) I just cut it extra tall with S/D, let the clippings dry a little and cut it again 2 days later...

 

SWMBO thought I was nuts... lol

[Tankman 3,518]

Instructions read, mow high, then again a bit lower, then your normal cutting height.

 

After the last cut, mower at max height, high speed engine, to disperse grass clippings. 

I made a tow bar for my Little Wonder blower. Works well especially when the neighbors are out-of-town. 

 

Never tried it but sounds possible, perhaps I'll give it a shot someday.

[EricF 589]

I tend to mow at the higher settings all the time, so if the grass has grown overly tall I just mow each swath with only 1/2 the width my 48" SD deck, so the third blade is only chopping up the clippings getting passed through it. Once the lawn is done, I do a fast run over any areas with a lot of clippings at one or two different angles to disperse them. In a day or two, they dry up and disappear - mostly breaking down to feed the lawn. I don't have thick turf -- so the clippings break down into the ground easily. Good turf is a whole different animal to deal with.

 

So far this year, I've mowed the lawn exactly three times and had to do this twice. Once in the spring, because the lawn grows unevenly in the best of times, and some new grass needed to get a good start before I ran over it plus it would benefit from being fed the clippings. Then we had near-drought conditions for a month and a half. Followed by a week and a half of rain which turned the "desert" into a "jungle". In between I had one "normal" mowing session, and that's been it! (So much for seat time this summer...)

 

I never worry about cutting overgrown grass... the 520H just powers through. And so does my equally old M-series 2-cycle Lawn-Boy that I use for trimming. I have a slightly lawn-obsessed neighbor (Seriously, either his hobby is pretending to be a groundskeeper, or he just doesn't want to be inside with his wife...) who's forever running around with the biggest box-store John Deere riding mower he could find. After the rains, when the lawns he cares for (his son-in-law's house next to us and a rental house in back) were just as long as mine, he struggled with cutting at two different heights and bagging it, and still left lots of un-cut stalks and blobs of clippings. And he spends loads of time wrangling the JD around trees and obstacles with only partial success, since he apparently despises touching even a self-propelled trimmer mower. Then I spot him behind the line of sheds or trees, gawking as I run my decades-old equipment that never falters and leaves the grass looking nice in a single pass... He'll mow every week, whether it needs it or not, and his grass never looks any better (and sometimes worse) than mine!

 

I do think that mower decks make a difference in cut quality, especially with the typically less-than-deal grass growing conditions up here in New England. I've always found that small two-blade decks are fiddly to get adjusted right so they deliver a nice cut. I did it years ago with an old Craftsman lawn tractor that I got off Craigslist -- once I had that deck adjusted correctly, it cut better than the next-door neighbor's modern-era Simplicity. When that old machine gave up the ghost, I sold it for parts and moved on to an old Bolens "Suburban" heavy lawn tractor with a small three-blade deck. Much easier to get that one set up and cutting nicely as long as I kept the blades sharp. The Wheel Horse replaced that one, and the 48" deck is just head-and-shoulders above anything else I've ever run when it comes to easy, no-fuss adjustment and a really nice cut even under bad mowing conditions. Nearest contender might have been the 38" (I think?) three-blade deck on the 1970s-era John Deere 112 that I grew up with. But installing/removing the JD fully-suspended deck, routing the belt and adjusting the height stop was a royal pain in the backside compared to the Wheel Horse attach-a-matic hitch and front-mount mule drive system.

[953 nut 55,081]

Mulching decks and tall grass are incomparable! I have found that a rear discharge deck set up high and a pull behind lawn sweeper do a great job on tall grass and autumn leaves.                    Pile the clippings up to compost and you can get free fertilizer.