Have you ever wondered why the infield and the outfield of your favorite ballpark look so good? With the eye-catching stripes and patterns and the precision involved, they are an example of everything turf can be. While this is definitely a professional look, it’s not one that’s limited to professional turf managers. With the right combination of tools and turf, you could achieve the same look on your lawn. If you are interested in manicuring your lawn instead of “just” mowing it, there are three factors to consider that contribute to an outstanding lawn: equipment, maintenance practices and type of turfgrass.

If you aspire to achieve high-quality results on your personal lawn, this article will take you through the type of equipment and the maintenance required to get the results you desire. If you are looking at purchasing either a reel or rotary mower for your mowing needs, the following information will give you insight to both types of mowers. Cutting grass is best described as simply reducing the height of the grass. The first method used to cut grass (or forages) was with a scythe. One of the first mechanical means of cutting grass was a power-driven rotating scythe. The kind of equipment used today to cut grass includes rotary, flail and reel mowers. The common link to these three types of grass cutters are the two elements required by each mower in order to cut grass: the speed of the blade (tip speed) and a sharp cutting edge. The quality of cut is directly related to how fast the blades turn and how sharp they are.

Rotary mowers are available in a variety of cutting widths. The deck design of the rotary mower generates an upward airflow that creates a vacuum effect that pulls grass blades into a vertical position, optimizing the potential for a more effective cut. The airflow generated by the blades will also aid in discharging the clippings. However, the rotary blade cuts the grass blade on impact, which can cause a higher degree of injury to the leaf blade at the point of impact. Rotary mowers can damage the grass blades at low heights of cut (HOC). Different varieties of grasses are affected more than others, so the amount of damage done varies with the type of turfgrass. Some blades have many ribs, such as ryegrass, that can be shredded instead of being cut. When you use a rotary-type mower, you must mow your lawn higher to compensate for this repeated disturbance, which can result in less leaf-tip damage, but still will give a yellow appearance to your lawn. Most professionals in the lawn care industry understand that rotary mowers cannot provide a good quality cut that is lower than 1.5 inches. This, again, can be affected depending on the type of turfgrass you have in your yard. Bermuda and Zoysia, along with some ryes, will show much greater effects of blade tip damage than Bluegrass or Centipede.

Maintenance on rotary blades is fairly simple, but these blades need to be sharpened more often to help cut down on the damage to the grass leaf. Most rotary blades can be re-sharpened with methods ranging from using files to hand-held or bench grinders to specialized equipment. It’s important to take care when you’re re-sharpening to insure that the blade is balanced after the sharpening process. Special tools also are available to determine if a blade is balanced before you reinstall it and put it back in service. The reel mower made its debut in England more than 200 years ago and is still used extensively around the world to cut grass. The most common uses for reel mowers in North America are mowing golf course greens, tees and fairways; ball fields, both amateur and professional; and high-end commercial properties.

Manicuring turf (as opposed to “just” mowing it) describes the action of clipping a small part of the grass blades. You can use the rule of thumb to not remove any more than one-third of the grass height at any one mowing. An example of this would be if you are maintaining your lawn at 1.5 inches, mow the lawn when it gets to about 2.25 inches. To-date, the only method used to manicure turf is a reel mower where the reel, in conjunction with a bedknife, creates a shearing action, as compared to an impact with a rotary. The shearing action is one that duplicates a pair of scissors.

The reel must be maintained extremely close to the bedknife in order to produce an effective cut. Unlike the action described earlier for cutting grass, the element of tip speed is not required to gain a high quality of cut. The two essential elements for reels are sharp blades and a relationship between the reel blade and bedknife. Just like a pair of scissors, the reel blades should be acting with the bedknife with very little (preferably zero) clearance between the two. If you have been “just” mowing with a rotary mower and change to a reel mower to manicure your lawn, one thing you can do almost immediately is to bring down the height of cut. Mowing lower is possible because you are doing minimal damage to the grass blade and you are cutting the blade tip off cleanly, not leaving a ragged edge on the blade. This causes less yellowing and gives your lawn a better and healthier overall appearance. You can usually mow grass that spreads horizontally shorter than an upright-growing bunch-type grass. Grasses with narrow blades can generally be mowed closer than grasses with wide blades.

When you are looking to manicure your lawn with a reel mower, there are some other options you will want to look for in a mower. Check to see if the entire cutting unit is free-floating. A mower with a free-floating cutting unit is less likely to scalp the grass in the high or low spots in the yard, giving you much better looking turf because of the minimal damage done to the plant. How high will you be mowing your turf? We have touched on the blades and how they make a clean cut on the grass blade, but there are different blade configurations, resulting in different numbers of blades on a reel. There can be five to 10 blades welded onto what is called a spider. Usually, the lower the number of blades, the higher you can mow the turf; and the more blades, the lower you are able to maintain the turf. To help achieve an even better quality of cut, look to see if a front grooved-type roller is available. The roller should be used when you are maintaining turfgrass at 1.5 inches and less. The front roller will also help to minimize the effects of scalping when you are mowing at low heights of cut.

The striping effect you see on golf greens, baseball fields or even home lawns is accomplished with a rear roller on the cutting unit. If there is no rear roller available on the mower you are looking to purchase, the possibility of striping your lawn is impossible.