Fort Smith Lawn Care | Why is Spring Cleaning Important?

Here at Cutting Edge, we believe spring cleaning is crucial and a must for well maintained lawn and landscaping. We know as well as anybody how anxiously we await that grass to turn green so we can have a beautifully manicured lawn again. But if before the grass turns green and lawn mowing season starts you have to prep your property with a proper thorough spring cleaning!

First of all, your property will look ugly and messy if you don’t, but it’s also important for the health and vitality of the your shrubs and grasses. There’s usually left over leaves that fell after the leaf season that got neglected, or leaves that were blown or swept up under the bushes and caught up in the monkey grass even during the leaf season. It can be harmful to the shrubs if leaves remain packed in underneath them. Most plants also need a fresh cut and trimming to cut away old dead ends from the previous year, and make way for the new fresh growth. This is why pruning is important, and is the whole concept behind pruning: cut away the unnecessary and unfruitful to free up the wasted resources for the healthy and fruitful growth.

Spring cleaning can be a daunting task with so much mess and so many different plants needing different types of care. It definitely gets procrastinated by most, but there’s no need. We can do it fast and the right way for the right price. We love spring cleaning and would be happy to do yours before lawn mowing season starts and everyone gets too busy. Contact us for your free estimate.

Fort Smith Lawn Care | When Should you Trim Monkey Grass?

While Cutting Edge loves and specializes in Lawn Mowing, we still love and have the know how to care for all your lawn care and landscaping needs, and we’re here to answer your questions! One of the questions we get the most is “when should I trim my monkey grass?”

Most people think you can trim monkey grass whenever you want, because “you can’t kill monkey grass.” While most monkey grass is almost impossible to actually kill, it is possible to mess up how they look and grow for a season. Particularly the really popular ones such as liriope and variegated liriope. You can trim them any time of year and they will continue to grow, but these grasses are supposed to grow to a point on the ends. These ends form when the grass first starts to grow at the beginning of the season, if you cut them out of season, they will continue to get longer, but you’ve cut the tips off, and you will have flat tipped monkey grass; it is a bit bizarre looking.

The proper time to trim these grasses, is in between growth periods. Obviously when the grass is totally brown, it is in between growth periods, however at that point your landscaping looks neglected and messy. When the fall and winter come, and you see the tips of the grass start to turn brown, it is starting to die, and it is safe to trim, without hindering it’s proper shape for the next season.

This may all seem complicated and annoying to keep track of. The good news is, we love it! Call Cutting Edge for all your lawn care and landscaping needs!

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Do you have to bag leaves?

When it comes to the curb appeal of your house, nothing makes your yard look plain messy like leaves, so one way or another leaf removal is a must if you want your yard to look nice and clean. But what is the best way to get rid of them? Is it cleaner to bag leaves? is it better to bag leaves? Well in our experience, no. Our favorite technique, both for ease, and best cleanest results, is to mulch the leaves with a good old fashioned lawn mowing. Granted our lawn mower isn’t your average one to use. When we come to do a leaf removal we bring state of the art mulching mowers that make it look as if the leaves were never there.

But what about the health of the yard? Well it’s still good for the yard to mulch leaves, they are a natural, God given fertilizer and lawn nutrient; but as is the rule in all of life: everything in moderation. so while it is easy and clean and healthy to mulch the leaves right back in to the yard, there can be too many leaves that smother the grass. But this requires a LOT of leaves. Now sometimes if you have zoysia, which is a very picky peculiar grass, it is best to bag, because any sort of gathering debris and thatch can potentially hinder growth.

So you’re faced with a problem, bagging leaves with an old fashioned rake and lawn bags is not thorough, it is exhausting, time consuming, and downright tedious, not to mention it just doesn’t get all the leaves. Well the best and easiest solution is to call us! We can bag and make it look clean and quick, because lucky for you, we have the equipment, the time, and know how to make this happen!

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Why you need to scalp your bermuda and zoysia grass in the spring.

We get asked all the time, “should I scalp and bag my lawn?”. Well the simple answer is “it depends.” It depends on the kind of grass you have, when the last time you mowed was, how short the last lawn mowing was, has it grown since the last mowing?

To try to make it as simple as possible, if you have zoysia or bermuda, then yes you should scalp and bag it, and here’s why. If you want an easy example look around town for someone who hasn’t trimmed they’re monkey grass all year. you’ll see a really ugly dead brown plant. When the spring comes around the brown grass doesn’t turn green, but new growth springs up from the ground. If you don’t cut back the dead grass, then you’ll hardly even notice the new growth, and it certainly won’t be pretty. Your lawn is the same, to promote healthy new growth and make sure it looks lush and green, you need to cut back and dispose of the old dead growth.

This is why in the spring, before lawn mowing kicks off, you need to mow much lower than you normally would, and bag and dispose of the clippings. According to fairwaylawns.com/lawn101/mowing you don’t want to scalp until all chances of frost are gone. Usually the ideal time for scalping lawn mowing is roughly between March 15th and April 30th. Once you’ve got this done you’re geared up for a lush successful lawn mowing season.

Fort Smith Lawn Care | How important are sharp lawn mower blades?

We’ve all been there, driving (or pushing, we don’t judge) your lawn mower, trying to get the yard done as quickly as you can to get out of the hot sun. You drive a strip and come back around to see that the grass is uneven and not all cut, it is beyond frustrating to have to run over the same grass multiple times, and even then it doesn’t look smooth and even. Time to sharpen or change the blades.

However, the importance of sharp lawn mower blades goes beyond only having to mow the grass once. The more dull the blades get, the less they cut the grass and the more they tear it. At this point it is merely the high speed of the blades that is ripping the grass apart. Not only does this not look as good and clean, but it’s not good for the health of your grass. Mowing with these conditions will damage your lawn and cause unhealthy growth.

If you’re wondering how often you should sharpen your blades it merely depends on how much grass you’re mowing and how often you mow it. For Lawn mowing services like us, running multiple mowers everyday of the week, it’s imperative to sharpen and refresh our blades weekly or bi-weekly. If you’re just mowing your own yard you’ll have to judge it for yourself. But sharpening your blades is never a bad idea.

The easiest solution is to forgo the headache and hire a professional lawn mowing service!