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Mowing prairie
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Posted by beckylc zone 4 (My Page) on Sun, May 14, 06 at 18:50
| How do those of you with a small prairie planting mow it the first few years? My instructions tell me to keep it to 6" this year and 8-10" next year, but how? This is a small area, about 25x100 ft. so no big equipment. We've mowed it once with the lawn mower on its highest, but that's about 3.5 inches. It seems too big to try to cut it with a regular string trimmer and I've been looking at wheeled string trimmers, but find that they won't mow any higher than 5". Any suggestions on my best option? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Mowing prairie
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| two words; weed wacker. that way, instead of the pleasure of mowing only once, u can mow each and every time ur prairie gets too tall. fyi, ive weedwacked multi acres on hillsides. ur 1/20th of an acre seems do-able. froggy |
RE: Mowing prairie
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| You can use your mower on the highest setting... 3.5" will not hurt your prairie plants.... the string trimmer at 5" is fine too.... I wouldn't "buy" a new tool, Use what you have, a weed wacker, hand sieve or rotary mower ... |
RE: Mowing prairie
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| ill let u in on a little secret. i do plenty of mows with my toro bagger mower. |
RE: Mowing prairie
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| Thanks, guys. Is it okay to just mow it for this entire year? If so, for next year maybe we'll just get a new string trimmer so we can whack it off higher. Even though the area is small, our gas trimmer is too heavy for those of us with bad shoulders to maneuver over the whole thing. |
RE: Mowing prairie
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| sure. the first year, i usually completely write off as nuthing but weeds anyhow. the occasional black eyed suzi vs the weeds that happen into the future arnt worth it. if you want to mow it @ 3.5" because of necessity, then that is what u should do. in the short term, its more important to keep the weeds down than to let it lay fallow. froggy |
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