Good Growing

This week on the Good Growing podcast Chris shares a Gardenbite of when retired horticulture educator Richard Hentschel visited the show in 2021 to talk about fall lawn care. During the show, Richard spoke about three things we could all do to reduce our lawn inputs. 

Want to see or listen to the entire show? Watch this episode on YouTube or listen on our website.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCWX2HzFpY8&t=151s 
Good Growing Podcast: https://extension.illinois.edu/podcasts/good-growing/ep-80-fall-lawn-care-tasks-and-tips-richard-hentschel-goodgrowing 

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Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu 

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Creators and Guests

Host
Chris Enroth
University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator serving Henderson, Knox, McDonough, and Warren Counties
Host
Ken Johnson
University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator serving Calhoun, Cass, Greene, Morgan, and Scott Counties

What is Good Growing?

Talking all things horticulture, ecology, and design.

Chris Enroth:

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a garden bite for you today. Tis the season for lawn care. That's right. Fall is approaching, which means we have to be getting our lawns into shape after we've had such a rough summer.

Chris Enroth:

But what can we be doing right now? Well, timely topics, that's kind of what we're all about, but time is showing that it is dry right now, and it's going to be dry for the next couple weeks. And to do some of these lawn care items, we have to have some moisture in the soil, like overseeding your lawn. It would be great if there was some rain so that the seed would actually germinate. Fertilization.

Chris Enroth:

A lot of times our fertilizers require us to water in that product. And also aerating. Well, that aerator, it's not going to punch a hole into that dry soil anytime soon. So let's take a look back at retired horticulture educator Richard Hentschel when he came to the GoodGrowing podcast, and he talked to us about ways that we can have a healthy lawn without all of these chemical inputs. And he shares with us his mantra that I live by to this day.

Chris Enroth:

So everyone enjoy this excerpt as we spoke with Richard in how we can have a better lawn without all the inputs.

Katie Parker:

So our next question is about someone who likes a well maintained yard. So they do like to maintain their lawn, but they don't really like to apply fertilizers or herbicides. Is there something that they can do to keep their lawn well maintained, but do it in a more natural way?

Richard Hentschel:

Sure. And I'm what I'm about to say works for those low level management lawns as well as the high level management lawns. There are some things that we do routinely that if we just modify how often we do them, change the frequency, things like that, our lawns will look better. And and if, you know, the world is full of mantras and sayings, but my lawn mantra is you mow high, you mow often with a sharp mower blade. If you do those three things just by themselves, avoiding any other kind of fertilizer inputs or watering or anything else, your lawn is going to look better.

Richard Hentschel:

That taller grass blade generates more energy. There's more photosynthesis going on, so there's more energy for the grass plant in the roots. The longer grass blade will shade the soil, keeping it cooler, something again, grasses. Our our Kentucky blue our grasses essentially here in Illinois are still cool season grasses, for the most part. And, that longer grass blade that's shading the soil also, shades weed seed from the the from the needed sunlight it needs to germinate with.

Richard Hentschel:

So our weed population is better managed. And and again from the and from a generally healthy standpoint, the longer the leaf blade, the deeper the roots. So if we're not gonna water, that deeper root is able to get more moisture on its own and stay greener longer before the drought in the summertime, say, in August, finally finally gets here and and the lawns do go dormant. So there's a lot of benefits from just mowing high, mowing often. The mowing often part is reflective of the the other well known fact that we talk about all the time that says you don't wanna mow off more than a third of the grass blade at one time.

Richard Hentschel:

That's the often part. If you maintain that mow only mowing off one third at a time, you will not slow the plant from growing. It will remain competitive against weed seeds, for example, or if there's a weed present, it remains competitive against the present weed. So the one third rule is probably the worst one or the hard I shouldn't say the worst one, the hardest one to follow because most of us think about mowing our lawn once a week regardless of how much it's grown. So in the springtime, we might need to mow twice a week for a period of time, and in the summertime, maybe less than once a week.

Richard Hentschel:

There's no purpose in mowing a lawn that is not growing other than to put the mower wheel track marks in the lawn that look like we've done something. In the fall of the year, there's a there's a time again where the lawn's going to have that fall flush and but it's not gonna be nearly the length of the flush that we have in the springtime because in the fall, the plant's putting its energy into the roots. And that's far different than than, seeing that flush growth in the springtime happen above ground. Yet there is going to be a smaller, shorter flush in the fall, though. So we might have to amp up our mowing frequency again in the fall for a short period of time.

Richard Hentschel:

But those are the things that will make any lawn, regardless of the level of maintenance or the level of inputs, look, again, kinda look that much better. The other part about the one third clipping rule is that if you follow that, most often, you do not have to collect the clippings. Your lawn mower chops them up fine enough, they just sift right back in. And the finer the leaf blade bits, the quicker they decompose, the sooner they turn around and and collapse and generate and release, I should say, because of the decomposition, energy back into the soil that, again, is usable by the grass plant. Grass clippings left on the lawn will typically generate about, about a pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet, and that's free fertilizer that you haven't had to pay for.

Richard Hentschel:

Doesn't have anybody's brand name on it, but the grass plant doesn't care, and you just have a very, you're returning that, you're recycling that, and the decomposition rate then of your, quote, unquote, thatch layer is very good because you your lawnmower has already chopped the grass blades up into very small fine bits. So there is the other benefit of mowing often involving the one third rule.

Ken Johnson:

I will admit, I am not good about the one third rule, especially in the spring. Sometimes our grass ends up getting to be five, six inches long before we cut it.

Richard Hentschel:

Well and in the spring, we do have I mean, there are not there are times when you certainly can't win that battle, and I get that. But it's getting it back into the one third rule as soon as you can that makes, makes such a difference. If you follow the one third rule, there are times of the year where you really have to focus on where you've mowed for the next cut because that isn't a lot of grass you're removing compared to when it's six inches long and you cut it to three inches. That's an obvious line that's easy to follow. I get all that, and that's just human nature.

Richard Hentschel:

I mean, it it happens. But as soon as you can manage that one third rule better. The other thing that can happen if your lawn is tall and and you really don't wanna pick up the clippings or bag the clippings, and this is another time element here, but mow the lawn using half a swath. Let the lawnmower have more time to to cut the lawn, chop up the taller grass blades, and and make them small enough that they sift back into the soil. If you take a full width, you know you're going to have grass laying on top when you're done because it that just exceeds the capacity of the mower and the mower deck.

Richard Hentschel:

So if you take a half a pass, you've got a better chance of not having to pick up any clippings even though the lawn's taller. So that's just I don't know if that's a helpful hint or not, but I it it just takes more time to get the lawn mowed. Take that against a full width mowing and stopping and emptying the bag. And I bet you half a width is still quicker than when you have to make all the trips to the compost pile or the waste bag, if you're taking a full swath. So that's something else we can do.

Ken Johnson:

It gets you out of other yard work too because it takes longer.

Richard Hentschel:

There you go. Just make sure you stay hydrated.

Chris Enroth:

Well, that was a lot of great information about how we can have a nice lawn without all of the inputs by mowing high, mowing often, and keeping our blade sharp. If you wanna see the entire episode of how Richard gives us fall lawn care advice, that link is gonna be down below in the description. So we have got a full list of topics that we have coming up on the GoodGrowing podcast from mulch to water conscious landscapes to climate and pollinators. So looking forward to talking with all of these people here on the podcast. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening or if you're watching us on YouTube watching.

Chris Enroth:

And as always, keep on growing. Well, that was a lot of