Best Way to Cut Lawns and Edges

Step 1. Get your safety gear on

Before you dive right in to mowing the lawns, you should first make sure you have the right protective gear on. It is a good idea to don a pair of safety glasses to protect your eyes from any flying debris flicked up by the lawn mower. Earmuffs, while not a necessity, are extremely useful as lawn mowers can be very loud. Make sure you’ve got sturdy closed-toe footwear on at all times when you’re using a lawn mower to protect your feet from the sharp blades. 

Step 2. Prepare your lawn and lawn mower for use

While mowing lawns can be a simple task, there are a few things you need to do to prepare to mow the lawn and to ensure your safety. 

Firstly, it is a good idea to give your lawn a once over to make sure it is ready to be mown. Here’s a few things we recommend checking: 

• Check your lawn beforehand and make sure you pick up any stones, twigs or debris that could get caught in the mower. 
  
  
• Try not to mow your lawn when it is wet, as this can spread fungi/bacteria through your lawn and also get grass clippings stuck to the underside of your mower. Not ideal!

If you’re using a petrol powered lawn mower, you’ll also need to conduct some of the following safety checks:

• You should check the fuel and oil levers before you start using the mower, as it’s dangerous to do so when the engine is warm. To do this, simply take out the dipstick from the engine, wipe it off with a clean cloth and then set it back in the tube. Remove the dipstick again and check where the oil is on the stick. 
  
  
• You should then make sure you’ve got the cutting height set properly, to determine how short you want the grass to be. As a golden rule, it pays not to cut off more than 30% of your grass length. 

Step 3. Start the lawn mower

If you’ve never owned a petrol powered lawn mower before and you were brought up with hand mowers or electric lawn mowers, then you may not be familiar with how to start a lawn mower. 

To start the lawn mower:

• Simply turn the fuel tap on and then turn the throttle lever from the stop position to the choke position.
   
• From there, all you need to do is pull on the starter cord until the motor starts.
  
  
• You can then move the throttle lever once again to the run position.

If your lawn is looking to be more on the unhealthy side, it could be a good idea to hire a lawn dethatcher/scarifier. An easy test for figuring out whether you should use the dethatcher is to try and poke your finger through to the soil. If that is really hard to do, it is likely that you have a thick layer of thatch in the way. 

If you are wondering how to start up a lawn detatcher, here’s a quick step by step breakdown:

• Check the dethatcher head is in the raised position
• Place the throttle lever in the choke position 
• Pull starter cord out until you feel a slight resistance 
• Let starter recoil and give sharp pulls till engine fires
• Reposition throttle to the idle position and allow engine to warm up
• Then set the depth using the depth control knob,  make sure the depth isn’t too deep that it cuts into the soil

Now you’re ready to start mowing.

Step 4. Mow around the perimeter

• This step is often neglected by people as they often believe that it’s faster to leave it until the end. Mowing the perimeter gives you room for when your lawns are close to any surrounding walls and it can help give you a squared area to mow the lawn if it wasn’t square-shaped already. 

• Simply push the mower from the handles using two hands across the patch of grass you’re wanting to cut and let the mower do the rest of the work. You should veer the lawn mower around any trees right along the edges and around plants.  

Step 5. Step 5: Mow back and forth in straight lines

The actual mowing part makes up the bulk of the work. The key to getting the most aesthetically pleasing lawns in your neighbourhood is ensuring that the overlap you mow is perfect. It is also the most efficient way to mow, as it takes the least amount of time. There are other mowing patterns out there, such as circles, spirals or stripes, but they are a bit less straightforward and time consuming. So if you just want to get the job done neatly and quickly, here’s what we recommend you do: 

• Mow from one end to the other in a straight line a number of times until the lawn is fully cut. 
  
  
• After each strip is mowed, move the mower horizontally to the unmowed patch of grass, so that the middle of the mower is in between the two strips and mow the lawn in the opposite direction. This ensures that you’ll get the best overlap and there won’t be a line of grown grass in between the mown strips. 
  
  
• Continue this process while changing directions when appropriate and cutting around objects such as plants and trees until the entire lawn is done.

Step 6. Cut the edges with a weed eater

This is the last step of cutting your lawns and will help add the final touches to your lawn to make it look perfect. You’ll need a weed eater to do this efficiently and precisely. 

To cut the edges, you need to:

• Turn the weed eater on. 
  
  
• Whilst holding the weed eater level and rigid, you’ll want to walk along the area you’re wanting to cut. The idea of this is to let your body move to cut the lawn rather than moving your arms, so that you can have more control and cut the right places.
  
  
• Take some time and edge the lawn slowly so that you won’t have to go over the same bits again. Continue walking along a sidewalk if you can to make it.

Once this is complete, you may wish to spray your lawn with weedkiller or plant new grass on the sparse areas. Take a look at our Lawn Care 101 guide to determine the maintenance required to keep your lawn looking great all year round easier, moving the edger along the patches of grass you’re wanting to cut until you’ve cut along each edge of the lawn.