Mulch-mowing vs. side discharge vs bagging

First, to deter some hijacking-by-parallel-answers:

[li]Yes, I use a gas mower.  Most practical for mowing my 3 acres of grass[/li]
[li]Yes, I'm working towards decreasing this lawn, replacing it with trees (currently sticks) and gardens of pretty and/or useful sort[/li]
[li]No, I don't plan on changing my mower anytime soon.  I'm cheap, and I like to use things until they're dead.[/li]

Now, with that out of the way...

The current thinking is that mulching (no bagging nor discharge in any direction but down, usually with special blades) is what should be done, "it's the best."  It finely cuts the grass down for super-quick breakdown and feeding of your lawn.  No unsightly cut grass on the top because it all trickles down much easier so finely cut.

That all makes great sense to me.  But I like side-discharging now, and here's why:

[li]It's still "mulching"/returning the grass back to the soil[/li]
[li]The "feed" grass gets moved from areas of great growth over to the areas of lesser growth (the wonderful areas don't just feed themselves, it shares the wealth out from the edges)[/li]
[li]I still don't see grass littler sitting on top (probably because of my not horribly dense yet nature of my lawn)[/li]
[li]I can cut the grass when I've let it grow too long without it bogging down (I'm lazy sometimes)[/li]
[li]Blades are cheaper (I'm cheap all the time)[/li]
[li]When I do cut grass too long, I feel like I'm helping the thinner parts of my lawn more, with a more substantial mulch to hold/protect the dirt better[/li]
[li]My mower deck blade area stays cleaner longer (I always found the mulch-cut grass stuck a lot easier to my deck)[/li]

So far the only think I don't like has to do with the blowdryer effect, where one of my young trees/sticks ends up on the wrong side of the mower for a close pass.  But I can probably manage that by not daydreaming while mowing.

Have I missed something else wonderful in closed mulch-mowing that isn't translatable into side discharge?  Or something horrible about side discharge that is fixed by closed mulch-mowing?

I've read that a grass barrier of nastertium or similar can help trees to become established.

It might also help absorb the side discharge, or at least add some distance between the mower and the sticks.

Interesting thought!  Would look real nice too!

I always make several concentric rings around trees, with the side discharge facing away. A mulch, living or other, bed helps too. I've started using a mulcher, but I still have the habit of making several rings around trees, with the tree to the left of the mower. The same goes for other obstacles as well. I make several passes with the mower blowing away from the obstacle. Mulching around trees helps alot for other reasons. Competition, water conservancy, etc. I try to keep the mulch bed out to nearly the drip line.

jeremiah bailey wrote:
I always make several concentric rings around trees, with the side discharge facing away. A mulch, living or other, bed helps too. I've started using a mulcher, but I still have the habit of making several rings around trees, with the tree to the left of the mower. The same goes for other obstacles as well. I make several passes with the mower blowing away from the obstacle. Mulching around trees helps alot for other reasons. Competition, water conservancy, etc. I try to keep the mulch bed out to nearly the drip line.

I'm fairly generous with the mulch as well, and I too circle obstacles in this way.  However, when I'm doing "the back and forth" sometimes I end up on the wrong side of the tree, a little too close.  Like I said, I think I just need to stop daydreaming!   But also, with the high lift blades in, it blows it quite far, more than the 1 or two mower deck widths margin I try to put around the trees.  Most of the time I'm not as worried about the latter situation, mulch is mulch as long as it's not coming at you at 60 MPH!  And at a couple deck widths away it's not coming that fast.  It's the "Oh crap, did I just pass by that twig with my chute right next to it (or even the edge of the mulch circle)?"

Despite my apparent attempts to kill them, the vast majority of my trees are still alive though!    I guess I'm making them stronger!  Which they need with some of the Mother Nature wind we get round here sometimes!

Thanks for the suggestions, they're knocking around in my head underscoring my need to practice these actions...

I really like the bit about taking grass from the thick spots and shooting it to the thin spots.  I never thought of that before.

You can shoot it where ever you want, as long as you can aim the discharge chute that way. If you do an inward clockwise spiral around the yard, you'll end up with a nice size pile of grass. That is if your mower has the umphf to handle masses of clippings. Mulching set ups kind of do the same, especially when you get rather thick areas. They don't discharge per se, so it tends to build up mass in the deck. When you get to a thinner area, or tilt/raise the deck, it clears.

I missed the daydreaming bit before. Maybe you need to put orange road cones around them. Or a proximity sensor that triggers an air horn. Or both, just so the neighbors really love ya! Barring that, just consider it "hardening off."

jeremiah bailey wrote:
Mulching set ups kind of do the same, especially when you get rather thick areas. They don't discharge per se, so it tends to build up mass in the deck. When you get to a thinner area, or tilt/raise the deck, it clears.

That's the part the tends to thicken up the deposits on the underside of my deck, I think.  My favorite part of mowing my "wastelands" (the part in the far back of my property that I hardly take care of that didn't get seeded very well that the big/ugly/woody/what-have-you weeds own) is mowing over the dead, thick, straw-almost-woody weeds, imagining them kind of sandblasting my underdeck and chute as they blow around and out.

jeremiah bailey wrote:
Maybe you need to put orange road cones around them. Or a proximity sensor that triggers an air horn. Or both, just so the neighbors really love ya! Barring that, just consider it "hardening off."

I like the air horn idea!  Hmmm...would my neighbors care...?  Heh heh heh

That's the part the tends to thicken up the deposits on the underside of my deck, I think.  My favorite part of mowing my "wastelands" (the part in the far back of my property that I hardly take care of that didn't get seeded very well that the big/ugly/woody/what-have-you weeds own) is mowing over the dead, thick, straw-almost-woody weeds, imagining them kind of sandblasting my underdeck and chute as they blow around and out.

Imagining is one thing. Does that actually work? I hate lifting my deck to clean out the buildup. If it does, I might have to find a vacant, overgrown lot to mow.

jeremiah bailey wrote:
Imagining is one thing. Does that actually work? I hate lifting my deck to clean out the buildup. If it does, I might have to find a vacant, overgrown lot to mow.

Or keep a deepish patch of woodchips between where you mow and where you store the mower, to drive over just before putting it away?

jeremiah bailey wrote:
Imagining is one thing. Does that actually work? I hate lifting my deck to clean out the buildup. If it does, I might have to find a vacant, overgrown lot to mow.

Does it clean down to the metal?  Not with what I mow.  I think if you did polyp's (OK, maybe that's a bad abbrev...sorry) wood chip idea, that would make a nice blender that could loosen some of the harder stuff, but I think you might sacrafice blade sharpness a bit.

I know that the chute has gotten crusty and then un-crustied by mowing the thick dry weeds.  I guess the worst hurt you could have mowing a vacant lot is getting some stowaways coming back to your lot!

we have both here..the walk behind power mower tha I use is a mulching mower..or at least it is set up that way now..and i love the results..esp this last weekend when i mowed the leaves.

the rider my husband and son use..i don't..is a side discharge or bagger..guess it might be able to be set up for mulching too..don't know..but right now they are using the side discharge..

it is ok for what it does..usually not our lawn but our field areas get mowed with that one..or the more remote areas that we might mow..

if i had my choice i would have mulching..it works well for me....and we have about 3 or 4 acres of mowed lawn or field as well..and my son has a radio control dirt track..which he mows around out in his field..he uses the rider for that as it is not level..

Jeremy Bunag wrote:

Does it clean down to the metal?  Not with what I mow.  I think if you did polyp's (OK, maybe that's a bad abbrev...sorry) wood chip idea, that would make a nice blender that could loosen some of the harder stuff, but I think you might sacrafice blade sharpness a bit.

I know that the chute has gotten crusty and then un-crustied by mowing the thick dry weeds.  I guess the worst hurt you could have mowing a vacant lot is getting some stowaways coming back to your lot!

Well I used the ol' mower to obliterate some cardboard boxes for my compost a while back, and I was just taking off the deck for the season (so I can now handle snow) and was pleased with the lack of the typical buildup I saw on the underside!  "I gotta take pictures!"  Yeah, there's still some in a couple places, but boy was it easy to clean up this year.  And the normal grass pathway that usually has inches of buildup had none...woo hoo!  Took me wayyy less time to scrape away the remaining stuff...

Here are a couple:

The need or wish to side discharge grass clippings is something one should carefully consider when buying a mower. Most of the walk behind rotary mowers that are listed as 3 in 1 accomplish side discharge in the most efficient way, but not all. What is the most efficient way and why? First it is important to know how these mowers cut. Almost all cutting occurs as the blade passes across the front of the deck of the mower, with the clock face reference, from about 10 to 2 o'clock. The natural path of grass clippings off the rotating blade is away radially. That means that the easiest exit path for the clippings that imposes the least load on the blade and least likelihood of being smashed onto the underside of the deck is the one closest to the point at which the rotating blade cuts the clippings off of the grass plants. Approximately 2 o'clock is therefor the best place for the discharge port to be. Since all the rotary mowers I know about rotate the blade clockwise as viewed from above, that'd be on the right side of the mower deck. A mower designed to exclusively discharge through a dismountable chute in it's rear discharge port for rear bagging requires more energy to get the clippings to it and since those "chutes" all discharge to the left of the mower, the chutes themselves introduce mower loading additional resistance to the clippings / air flow the blade creates.. My Neuton CE-5 14" SLA battery pack powered mower is a great example. It is designed for rear bagging and mulching mode mowing but I bought a chute that inserts in place of the rear bag. It works fine for side discharge unless I let the grass get too long before mowing. Then it loads up converting function to mulching mode pretty quickly. A lot of the 3 in 1 cordless electrics now available have a spring loaded cover and a chute insert for a discharge port at ~ 2 o'clock. Their advantage is clear. Were I not in the midst of the patent process for an "improved rotary mower blade" design, testing of which my Neuton offers unparalleled ease of process, I would never have replaced my 13 y/o Neuton EM 4.1 14" SLA powered mower with it's current younger brother, my CE-5, last fall. Both the old and new 14" Neutons use the same battery pack, the newer versions of which are more easy to modify for in use power consumption testing. The objective of the "Improved Rotary Mower blade" is greater efficiency.

Personally, I have always utilized a side discharge when I mow. I enter a sort of mowing trance when I fire up my push mower and aim to get things done in a steady methodical manner. There is nothing worse to me than the mower bogging down and quiting because there is too much material for the mower. The side discharge paired with listening to the motor has proven incredibly useful to my process.

If the situation happens to be that the grass has grown especially lawn and I'm leaving grass clumps behind, I still find it faster to rake after I have finished mowing instead of fighting with a bagger attachment. Usually, I leave the cut grass on the ground but if its clumped up I will remove it to prevent dead spots.

Bagged and into compost pile.

Ourmower is set up for mulching, and it is pretty good at that, but I'd really like to collect the cuttings for mulching elsewhere - as said above moving the fertility from where I don't need it (on my mown paths) to where I do (trees, other plants and vegetable patch). I'n gonna need to design a collection box though...

I have had mulching mowers in addition to the side and rear discharge mowers.  I would prefer to never have a rear discharge mower again, though there are some benefits.  I will start with the mulching mowers.

Mulchers are probably the least hassle when using them so long as they don't bunch up.  Since they mulch, there is little to no visible patch of clippings on the top and thus needs no raking.  Also, they make fall leaves disappear right into the lawn which is good for the soil and grass.  On the downside is that they tend to clog if the grass is wet/long, such as is very common in spring.  Also, unless there is a little cover that can be removed (many have this option), the mower is no good for moving leaves & grass into a long strip to then be collected and moved.  If you are bagging, then you will of course have to dump the bag periodically which I would find a pain and I would never do unless I deliberately wanted to mow something specifically for collection--sorta like using the mower as a type of lawn vacuum.

Side dischargers are the old standard.  They generally cut well and do mostly OK in tall/wet grass (they can of course bog down, but not like the mulchers).  One has to be careful when mowing by buildings because they will blow cuttings into garden beds (the ornamental flower type) and if they pick up a stick or rock right, it will find a window while traveling at high speed.  They leave a decent cut but leave clippings on the lawn.  Typically I don't care unless the clippings are so thick and dense that they might impair the growth of more grass, as is common in the spring.  In that case I use the mower to blow the clippings off the yard and into my field area.  This takes many passes, and each time I mow over a patch of clippings, they become smaller, more chopped up/shredded and they tend to pile up in little clusters.  Near the edge of my yard, even the mower has difficulty moving these clippings as they are now more like a green glop, but I can get it done.  Side dischargers are generally great if you want to windrow--such as when raking leaves, or harvesting green manure.  I may in the future find a little gas powered vacuum law cart that I can tow behind my mower so that I can better suck up all the chopped goodies and move them to my garden so as to feed the worms.

I thought that rear-dischargers would be the best.  One can mow on either the left or right side.  Mine was a rear-mounted PTO type that was attached to my old tractor.  And it did mow like a beast!  No wet/tall grass ever got in its way!  And while it was utterly impossible for this to have an attached mulcher (this was based on a style that exhausted all of the clippings evenly out the entire 60" rear of the mower deck), and lawn clippings were an inevitability, the clippings did NOT windrow and therefore did not tend to form dense piles.  This was pretty good until the grass got REALLY long in the spring at which point there was a dense mat that I had to get out and laboriously rake!  Windrowing with this mower was utterly impossible, though I could move some clippings or leaves backwards if I used the mower like a blower.  Clippings tended to stay close to the surface and never really disappeared like they did in other mowers.  I think that the clippings exhausted so quickly and efficiently that they never got cut or mulched into smaller pieces.  I sold that mower and while it did work really well for some purposes, I really don't miss it.  Also, since it was mounted on a 3pt hitch, this was not exactly a maneuverable piece of equipment.  I could back under a thick bush and mow undergrowth, but I had to be VERY careful when turning around so as to not damage something with the tail swing.


Just a few of my musings,


Eric

I could go on