Reel mower the best

aleicgrant – posted 05 April 2011 22:30

so is it true for cutting Zoysia that a Reel mower is the best? What about the clippings? One comment said that the clippings are like food for Zoysia, other comments say Zoysia likes it best when the clippings are bagged

HELP ;-(

mrmumbels – posted 06 April 2011 10:06

I bagged my clippings and leaves for 4 years. I’m pretty sure this was the main contributer to my soil having no organic material to hold water which is why my zoysia goes dormant 2 days after watering.

I will say that since Zoysia is so thick the clippings tend to sit on top of the grass so unless your mower mulches really good you’re going to see them after you mow.

If your lawn is small then go ahead and bag them and just use alfalfa pellets to put the organic material back in.

A reel mower is not needed at all. If your zoysia ever gets super thick like mine did the first year then you’ll see where a reel mower might help. When it’s crazy thick the rotary will tend to float on top of the growth a little and you’ll see where it swirls the grass around the direction of the blade. That swirl is the blade rubbing on the tops of the grass which would screw up a nice clean cut.

But as thick as mine was the first year my 6.5hp toro self propel did great except that I had to add a throttle to it so I could increase the rpm to make it through the real thick parts. Haven’t had that problem since then probably because my clip bagging also bagged up all the nice black muck the stuff was originally grown in.

awin4me – posted 18 April 2011 00:59

Sure if you want to overdue it a reel would work great but its quite a bit of work for a decent sized lawn. I use my Cub Cadet with mulching blades and it does a good job of cutting the clippings quite small.

I will add, I’d highly recommend that people bag their grass for the first cut or two coming out of winter dormancy

aleicgrant – posted 25 April 2011 15:07

well I just bought a brand new Honda mower with cruise control and a double blade. Did wonderful job cutting my Zoysia which is now about 5 inches thick from top to bottom. I set the mower on 3 which seems about right. I did bag everything but others have said to leave the clippings. It mulches it to a fine degree but not sure, leave it or bag it?

awin4me – posted 25 April 2011 18:15

If you have mulching blades on it I wouldn’t worry about bagging it. I have only bagged mine coming out of winter dormancy.

Similar to yourself I mow mine in the 3 to 5″ range. I mow it weekly in the summer months. As long as you mow it and don’t leave tons of grass clippings on top of the sod it should be find.

In fact the real “thick” spots (like over my septic tank) I mow it at 4″ then come back over it at a higher setting just to really make the cuttings super fine.

When I’m done mowing you never see clippings on top of my sod though. A weekly mow seems not to allow the grass to get too thick or too tall.