Mowing and Trimming
A cut has two halves. The deck goes over the open turf in straight passes and that part is quick. Then comes the trimmer work around fences, posts, tree rings, foundation lines and sprinkler heads, plus a blow off of the walks and drive, and that is where most of the clock goes. Two lawns with the same square footage can be twenty minutes apart because of it.
$40 an hour, 1 hour minimum. Every visit is billed at least one full hour even if the work takes thirty minutes. Why, and how to get the most out of it.
What the job involves
- On bluegrass, which is most of what grows here, I cut at about three inches. Tall grass shades its own soil, and that matters more in August than anything you can buy. On a lawn that has gotten long I raise the deck for a first pass and come back lower a few days later, instead of taking it all at once and leaving brown stubble.
- Trimming is the string work along fences, posts, tree rings, the foundation and the edge of every bed, anywhere the deck cannot reach. Edging is a separate pass that cuts a clean vertical line where turf has crept over concrete. In a photo the two look like the same job. On the clock they are not.
- Before the first cut I walk the yard for sprinkler heads. A trimmer head takes the top off a pop up in about half a second, and a mower deck will scalp any head sitting above grade. Point them out or flag them and that whole category of damage goes away.
- Clippings get mulched back into the turf by default, which returns the nitrogen and adds nothing to the visit. Bagging means they have to go somewhere, so we settle before the first cut whether that is your yard waste cart or hauled off, because hauling costs time and bed space in the truck.
- Every visit ends with a blow off of the walks, the driveway, the patio and the apron at the gutter. Clippings left on wet concrete stain it and wash into the storm drain, and a clean hard edge is most of what makes a cut look finished from the street.
- I change direction between visits. The same wheel path every week presses ruts into soft ground and trains the grass to lay one way, which shows up later as stripes that will not brush out.
What changes the price
Obstacles more than square footage. Open turf goes fast, and the same area with a trampoline, a dog run, three trees and a curved bed line doubles the trimmer time. Gate width matters, since anything under about three feet means a smaller mower or carrying gear through by hand. So does the height of the grass on the first visit, whether clippings get bagged and hauled instead of mulched back in, and whether the yard has been picked up after the dog. A lawn cut on a steady schedule stays quick in a way one left for three weeks never does, because the clippings stay short enough to leave where they fall.
What people usually get wrong
Cutting low to stretch the time between visits. Take more than a third of the blade at once and the plant spends the next week putting that height back, so you get faster growth, not slower. A short lawn also bakes its own soil through a Denver June and opens the canopy to weeds, while a taller cut shades the crown and holds water longer. If the goal is spending less, the place to save is the midsummer stretch when growth actually stalls. Not the deck height.
Send me this and I can quote it without coming out
There is no trip charge either way, but a remote quote is faster for both of us and it costs you nothing to try.
- One photo from a corner of the front yard that gets the whole thing in frame, and the same from a back corner.
- A photo of the gate to the back yard with a tape or your shoe next to it. Gate width decides which mower comes off the truck.
- A close shot of where turf meets concrete, fence and bed edges. That line is where the trimmer time lives.
- How tall the grass is now and when it was last cut. A first cut on a lawn that got away is a different job than a maintenance cut.
- Whether the yard is irrigated, whether a dog uses it, and whether you want clippings mulched back in or bagged.
When I am the wrong call
Two versions of this job belong to somebody else. Half an acre or more of open turf is slow behind a push mower and you pay for that time, so hire an outfit with a riding mower. And if what you want is a thick, weed free lawn rather than a tidy one, cutting it is not the lever that gets you there. Applying weed killer for hire is regulated work in Colorado and I do not do it, so you would be hiring a treatment company either way. Better you hear that now than after three visits.