Benefits of Using a Lawn Mower Bag

These days you usually have three options for your clippings: collecting in a lawn mower bag, mulch or side discharge.

Some mowers will feature only one of these options, whilst others will feature two and some will feature all three. Obviously the mowers which have all three options are generally going to be the more expensive to buy, though which type of mower you decide on really depends on what you prefer to do with you clippings.

Choosing a mower which has both a lawn mower bag and mulching capability gives you the greatest versatility, because it is not recommended to always mulch your clippings. If you’re unsure as to what exactly mulching means, here’s a brief explanation: a mulching mower doesn’t simply cut and discharge, it has a special mulching blade which continuously cuts and re-cuts and returns the much smaller clippings ‘into’ your grass rather than ‘on top’ of your grass.

The benefit with this is that you’re helping to fertilize the grass and holding moisture in the soil as mulched clippings contain about 80% water and 5% nitrogen. This in turn means that you don’t have to worry about the cost and hassle of using a lawn fertilizer as here you have a natural one! So, you can see that it’s especially good to mulch in times of heat waves or drought as it serves to protect the grass roots from the sun and returns moisture to the grass.

However, if you mulch too often it encourages the build-up of thatch which can lead to other problems for your lawn and means you will have to de-thatch and aerate it.

With a lawn mower bag you can still mulch your clippings but rather than spread them onto the lawn you collect the clippings. These can then be disposed of into your compost or placed around your garden in places where they may be useful to act as a fertilizer.

Of course the greatest benefit with collecting in a bag is that it saves you the time of raking up the clippings yourself and gives you a nicer looking, tidier lawn in a quicker time and as mentioned above, the clippings are then good to use elsewhere.

A lawn mower bag can come in different shapes and sizes, though if you’re considering collecting clippings in a bag it’s advisable to buy a mower with the bag included rather than trying to find one afterwards. Although you should be able to find replacement mower bags fairly easily you don’t want to end up with compatibility problems because if the bag doesn’t fit properly it will either fall off or won’t effectively collect the clippings.