Long grass: what it takes to bring an overgrown lawn back

Life happens. You went on holidays in October, it rained for three weekends straight, and now the back yard is somewhere between "meadow" and "lose a toddler in it". Every mower has seen worse, and no lawn is beyond saving - but it won't be fixed in one pass, and the first cut costs more than a normal mow. This is how it usually goes.

The rule of thirds

Grass stores its energy in the leaf. Cut away more than about a third of the blade in one go and the plant panics - it drops root growth and throws everything at regrowing leaf, which leaves it weak, brown and open to weeds. Take knee-high grass straight down to 30 mm and you're left with yellow straw and bare dirt.

So an overgrown lawn gets staged. High cut first - deck at maximum, sometimes a whipper snipper or brushcutter pass before the mower can even get in. Then a second cut a week or two later brings it down further, and by the third visit you're back to a normal mowing height with a lawn that's still alive.

What the first cut involves

• Slow passes, often doubled. Long wet grass bogs mowers. Half-width passes at walking-slowly pace take two or three times as long as a maintained lawn.
• An enormous amount of clippings. A lawn that's had three months of spring growth holds a trailer-load of material. It has to be raked, caught or carted, and if it can't go in your green bin, tip fees apply.
• Surprises. Long grass hides dog toys, sprinkler heads, star pickets and, in a Melbourne summer, the odd snake. Mowers walk the yard first for a reason.
• It'll look rough for a fortnight. The lawn under long grass has been growing in the dark. Expect pale, flattened, patchy - it greens up quickly once light gets back in.

What it costs

Around Melbourne, a first cut on an overgrown lawn runs 50-100% over the normal price for that size - so a lawn that would be a $90 regular mow might be $140-180 to bring back, occasionally more if it's waist-high. It costs more because it takes longer - no other reason. (Full price breakdown in what mowing costs in Melbourne.)

When you list an overgrown lawn on Mowie, say so honestly - there's a grass-length question on the listing for exactly this. Mowers can see the measured area and the photos, so the bids you get already account for the state of it. A mower who arrives expecting a jungle does a better job than one ambushed by it.

Keeping it from happening again

The cheapest lawn to mow is one that was mowed a fortnight ago. Regular bids come in 10-15% under one-off prices, and in the growing season fortnightly is the sweet spot for most Melbourne lawns - often the ongoing price lands close to what you were paying for occasional panic mows, minus the panic. Set the schedule once and it just happens; skip or pause any time from your phone.