Mulching and Bagging

[Pulleye16]

I need to take to Google and see about my mower but I think I'm switching to mulching vs bagging which we've done for years. I'm now getting older and am starting to care about my lawn. I've read the U of M's lawn care practice for our climate so I'm good on fertilizers, sprays, soils, pH levels and so on...

Question I have is...do I need a different blade? Someone once told me there is a mulch setting on the mower vs bag setting???  I'm sure I'm thinking way too much into this, LOL. 

My goal is to be "that neighbor!" 

[glenn57]

so....your gonna be one of them guys huh!!!!!

i never bagged grass or leaves.  not certain about different about settings. i have a push mower and the only setting i know of is if you mulch you close the discharge shoot!!!! not sure about a blade though.......i dont have a seperate mulching blade. seems to work just fine for me!

i "mulch" a fair amount of maple leaves in the fall for the lawn. been told its great fertilizer for the lawn.

[mike89]

yes there are mulching blades for that purpose, supposed to chop it much finer if I remember right...   

[Pulleye16]

yeah, I don't think my lawn mower is fancy enough to have different settings. I just don't want to leave a path of hay behind me that will kill the grass. That won't be a good start to show off in front of the neighbors.  The one neighbor across from me must hate his wife cause he spends every second out there grooming the perfect lawn....its on this year!

[glenn57]

  go get'em Pulleye!!!!!!

Ok now i gotta google mulching blades!!!!! thanks Mike!!!!! 

[Dotch]

A few years ago I bought a Country Clipper zero turn that came with a couple regular sets of blades and a couple sets of mulching blades. It also came with an insert for the chute so the deck would be contained for mulching. There were sharp but worn mulching blades on the deck when I bought it & since the grass was long, I took the insert out. It left the lawn a little rougher than I liked so I put the new set of regular blades on for the next mowing. It did a lot smoother job. It don't worry about raking or bagging, just let it lay. In my case tho, I think if a guy doesn't let the lawn get away from him or mow it too short, the mulching blades on it would work fine. I put some brand new mulching blades on last fall & put the insert back in for the last mowing. It evaporated the leaves, even the oak leaves that are kinda tough & leathery. Since the lawn wasn't real long, left it looking pretty nice going into winter. Also have a Troy Bilt mulching push mower I use under the apples & up by the house. It does an adequate job.   

[fishwidow]

We have mulching blades. We have lots of leaves and mow too much yard to bag. The blades are heavier and have some coarse teeth that beats up the leaves. There’s also a separate cover that fits in/on the discharge chute.

[Pulleye16]

Others above have also mentioned this discharge chute thing as well…gonna have see if mine has this.

Thanks all! 

[Gunner55]

 I used to manage a lawncare business & the only times we bagged was when we were dethatching in the Spring &/or when we were doing leaf cleanup in the Fall. We did have mulching blades on 1 unit all the time but that caused some issues on the yards where they liked it longer (3" or more) & we weren't able to get to 'em when we wanted.