What am I doing wrong with my lawn?!

[Johntheboy]

I'm hoping someone can give me a few pointers.... I had this at my last house, different lawn mower and tried all the basics to keep a healthy lawn but I'm having the same problem here.

I cut it about once a week but it always just looks like it has dry yellow patches throughout. As I say I had this with the last lawn on my old house and no amount of evergreen and watering would do it any good.

Can anyone help as to what I might be or any secrets to a lovely green green lawn?

Many thanks!

 

[r896neo]

Looking at the photo it looks like a lawn that has had too much cut off it. This is impossible if your cutting it once a week. I think your should sharpen your lawnmower blade, it can make a surprising amount of difference as a blunt blade tears and burns grass.

 

[Johntheboy]

Thank you for that, the mower is on it's highest possible setting at the moment. I'll look into having the blades sharpened though.

Any ideas from anyone else would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[JohnD]

It sounds like you have a cylinder mower. Before sharpening the knife and cylinder (you may be able to buy a new knife, or sharpen the old one by removing it and using a vice and file), verify that the knife is adjusted so it almost touches the cylinder. You should be able to cut a piece of stiff paper all the way along when you rotate the cylinder by hand.

The knife and cylinder work with a shearing action and seldom need sharpening or grinding unless you have hit large stones and bent them. They tend to wear in together. High spots will wear down as long as they are only lightly brushing, not banging together.

 

[Robbox]

Have you fed it with fertiliser recently?

 

[Brigadier]

Try varying the direction of mowing.
Mowing straight up and down all of the time leads to "washboarding", where the lawn has alternating ridges and furrows along its length.
In my experience, a hover mower gives a better finish on the average lawn.

 

[glasgowdan]

Looks like you're using a wheeled rotary mower.

Sharp blades aren't the problem. I suspect it's the ground conditions. I'd persist with a 3x annual feed with evergreen, and watering with a sprinkler every evening for half an hr when it's really dry.