Recycling Our Lawn Clippings

It's easy to quickly think about how often our lawns are mowed each year in our lawn care, and then to think about how many clippings are removed, not just at each service, but over the course of a year of mowing. In most cases these clippings are simply thrown away. To be driven away by rubbish trucks, around the city and eventually finding their way into land fill.

With such great nutritional benefits in lawn clippings, it can be a waste. Especially when we look at how much money we spend on fertilisers, soils, manures, and other garden supplements. Or looking at gutless and poor soils, when our humble lawn clippings could have been a great garden friend over the years.

Lets have a look at the uses and benefits of the humble clip.

Lawn Clippings In Garden Beds

Lawn clippings can really add some OOMPH into our gardens. When finished mowing, it's simply a case of pouring the clips into the garden bed for a great boost of nutrition. After applying, grab a spade and quickly and lightly dig them into the soil.

Working our way through all of our gardens, this process can usually repeat indefinitely, depending on the lawn to garden ration of course.

Speaking from experience, I went from gutless soil to a rich soil full of worms in around a year through this process. A year after stopping the practice, and it's time to begin the process again.

Important To Remember

The most important point in this process is to dig the lawn clippings into the soil.

This allows the organisms within the soil to enter the clips to propel their deterioration.

Without digging in, the lawn clips will sit on top of the garden bed for a very long time, not breaking down, and creating a water-proof layer which will repel water away from that section of the garden bed. It's easy, and only takes an extra minute to finish the job properly to gain all the benefits.

Exceptions To This Lawn Care Regime

Do not place lawn clippings into the garden when:

• weeds are present, and especially when seed heads are already formed, this simply propagates the weeds for their next generation,
• any weed spraying has recently been completed, these clippings MUST be placed in the bin.