And the reason I'm posting it here is because I'm not using Chem-lawn this season and the main reason I'm going with the higher cut is to try and shade out the weeds.

BG Timber- I usually am able to cut a little lower in early Spring and late Fall, and usually move it up a notch through the hotter months. I usually cut 3.5 in the hotter months and 3" or so in the cooler, give or take.

I'd say the first cut may not look great high because the grass is not thick or lush yet, although it should fill in quickly.

It depends on a lot of variables such as type of grass and all that and others may be able to help better in terms of that, but you should be OK w/ 3.5 inches.

Forgot to mention it is an organic lawn.

When I say holding onto moisture I mean the dew. I'm in a particularly humid area so the grass tends to be a little wet in the morning. It just seems that if the grass was higher it would stay wet longer underneath which like you said is the goal but when I mow, which I usually do in the late morning I don't want to be sliding all over the place. If that makes any sense.

BTW your grass looks beautiful. I think I'm mostly Fescue so it tends to lay over more then it appears yours does.

Let's see if this works.

{{gwi:1101507}}

That was not my lawn. A guy named William wrote in here many years ago to show the effects of watering deeply and infrequently along with mowing high. I believe he had renovated but it never looked right until he changed to mowing high. My lawn will never look that good - not at this address.

Thanks for the picture. There are some very fine bladed fescues that tend to fall over when they get tall. You might have to mow lower.
Have you overseeded recently?
Do you have much shade?
What are you fertilizing with? and how often?
How often do you water and for how long?

How high is too high depends on which grass you are growing. Some need to be kept at a fairly low height while others, notably the Kentucky Blue Grass strains, can be cut pretty high. If what you have is KBG and Perenial Rye they do quite well at 3-1/2 to 4 inches.

I haven't over seeded in some time, it's on the agenda for this fall.

I put down CGM earlier this spring and then I put down some cracked corn earlier this week.

Still spring so my watering needs have been pretty non existent yet.

It's a sun/shade combo. The area of the picture is mostly sun except over by the trees but the side is almost pure shade.

The fertilizers should get you some good color pretty soon if not already.

It looks a little thin so I'm thinking it is more fescue than KBG. If you have full sun you might consider seeding with KBG. It would change the texture of your lawn but it really gives a dense turf. The KBG in the picture I posted above looks to be one of the Elite varieties. Notice that it is very dense but also considerably coarser than your fine bladed grass. The biggest advantage to KBG is that it is dense and fills in quickly if it gets damaged. Fescues do not fill in by themselves and must be reseeded. Fescues have the advantage of remaining green(ish) in the winter (usually) and growing well in the shade.

You are worried about dew. Do you live near the shore or otherwise have a lot of damp mornings? Are you interested in applying compost to the lawn? (these are all related)

Not really near the water (on the east coast) but we do have a lot of humidity so the mornings to tend to be damp. I've thought about applying compost but I've never really seen a firm decision one way or the other on here.

I could do KBG but only in very limited areas because a lot of the lawn is in shade once the trees come in fully, so more then likely I will need a grass variety that is fairly shade tolerant.

I went through a period where I was very cool to compost. Recently I read something that changed my mind and I'm back on the compost bandwagon. The application rate is 1 cubic yard per 1,000 square feet. They'll dump it in your driveway and you'll have to wheelbarrow it out into piles in the yard. Then fling it around with a shovel and sweep it down into the turf with a push broom. It's a lot of work but very satisfying. I think the compost would help with your morning dew concerns. It will absorb a lot of moisture all day and then release it back to the soil if the temps get cool enough that dew forms. Compost also contains the very beneficial microbes that will prevent disease from getting going.

As for your seed selection, if you cannot do justice to KBG because of limited sunlight, then stick with fescues. You might start overseeding with a more coarse type of fescue. I don't know all the different ones but look around your area to see what is available. Do you have a zoo, museum, or botanical gardens where you could talk to a greens keeper about the grasses they use? Then again maybe it's just me, but your grass just seems so fragile and fine bladed.

It is very fine bladed, I'm not sure what variety it is but it's obviously starting to thin out at this point but that picture was taken underneath a tree so it was more exaggerated there.

I was thinking of going with a red fescue since I've read they it's one of the variety that spreads.

Hi, I wonder how your lawn is doing now? It looks a lot like my lawn has looked in shadier areas and I mow high all the time. This year, however, I decided to fertilize the lawn to try to build up the soil. I have around 10,000sq ft and bought around 240 lbs of alfalfa pellets and spread them all over the grass with a few good quality seeds mixed in. Then I spread around 6 bags of milorganite (I know the product is controversially organic, but I'm limited by cost, availability, and ability) I have sandy loam and loamy sand and I don't water the lawn, since it costs too much in money and water... I do, however let the rain come off the roof(no gutters) and have sloped and put sheeting under the mulch to keep the moisture away from the foundation and crawl space. With the rains, and fertilizer, the grass is getting so lush and beautiful. It is beginning to go to seed, so I hesitate to cut it as it is approaching 6" and my mower cuts to 4. I'm going to cut as high as possible most of the summer. I do have a rash of plantain, however, in spots ( I hate to tell you how many hours I spent pulling it the last couple of years, and my hands are too valuable to me for other things to wear them out this way (so I'm contemplating spot treating them unless you have a better idea.
(usually I chicken out and don't use chemicals.. haven't so far yet anyway)

BGTimber - the issue with your lawn and cutting high is how thin it is. The blades don't have support from the blades next to them to keep them standing uniform. I would still cut high, but you definitely need to work on overseeding and thickening it up.

I had the same problem and finally have the lush thick lawn I've been waiting for. My mower has 1-6 cutting height with 6 being the highest. I use to cut at 3 or 4 before rebuilding the lawn after taking out 2 large pine trees. Even at that height it didn't look good. Fast forward a few years and I just came in from cutting at 6 with a distinctive lush uniform striping look. You'd have to bend down and split the grass by hand to get to the dirt.

So what I'm saying is I've been where you are and have luckily worked my way to a nice lawn. The height and look issue your having is directly related to the thickness of the grass. Keep hitting it with the alfalfa and overseed it heavy when proper to do so.

Keep this in mind about grass height. Like all plants grasses utilize sunlight to manufacture nutrients to feed the roots so they can grow more grass blades. To an extent the more grass blade you have exposed to sunlight the better it is for your lawn. That does somewhat depend on the grass species you are growing however. Some species need to be cut shorter.
Another advantage to taller grass is that it can shade the soil which can keep some "weed" seeds from germinating. Taller grass blades also can aid in keeping soils cooler which helps prevent moisture evaporation which can help conserve water, although longer blades also give more surface area for transpiration of moisture.

Wow, talk about a blast from the past. Been a couple of years since I posted this thread. The post above about the grass not being dense enough to handle the high cut was exactly right. It's doing much better now after a couple of overseeds, one in the Spring(never doing that again) and one last Fall.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to overseed every fall. I've given up the idea of wanting a fine Fescue and I actually think TTTF is a much better look for my lawn.

Just for grins I'll post my latest picture of my new lawn in George West, Texas. GW is 100 miles south of San Antonio and about 60 miles north of Corpus Christi. If we have a sea breeze, it can be humid with temps in the 90s. If we have wind from anywhere else, it will be dry with temps at 100 or more.

Here's the pic. My lawn is an experiment to see how long I can go without watering, mowing, or fertilizing. It is St Augustine and has not been fertilized in years. It has not been mowed since September and has not been watered since October. We've been blessed with some rains but there are plenty of dead lawns that have been kept mowed.

{{gwi:90993}}

Lol - your neighbors must love you! J/K

Anyway, what are you going to do when you DO want to mow it?