First Cutting of the Greensward 2025

 My next door neighbour has a small lawn (Photo 1) and kindly donates the grass clippings for my hot composting bins. In return, I take all his weeds, shrub and tree prunings. It saves time, money and carbon emissions, by avoiding the trip to the waste/recycling centre (a 5-mile round trip), and feeds my hungry hot composters! We do not have a lawn so fresh green grass mowings are always welcome.

Photo 1: Rear Garden with Neighbour's Lawn Marked

Photo 2 shows the first cut, about 15-20 litres of grass clippings, along with the woody prunings that are part of the deal ...

Photo 2: First Greensward Cut (2025)

This year, the first cut was on March 9th (i.e. the 68th day of the year). In my 2024 post on this topic, I looked at a number of factors (winter month temperatures, rainfall, sunshine hours and number of frosts) that might influence the timing of the first greensward mowing (phenology). Based on the last 6 years (2020 - 2025), average temperatures in December (Figure 1, R² = 0.83) and February (Figure 2, R² = 0.46) have the best predictive power for estimating the date of the first lawn trimming.

Figure 1: December Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Figure 2: February Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Presumably, January temperatures in this part of the world are close to the minimum growth temperature for grass (4 ℃ to 5 ℃) and therefore do not have a measurable impact. The importance of December and February temperatures is illustrated in the following graph (Figure 3) - a correlation (R² = 0.89) between the average December + February temperature and the first mow date. 

Figure 3: December/February Mean Temperature (℃) vs Day of the Year for the First Grass Cutting 

Note that the choice of date for the first mowing is subject to a number of influences unrelated to the overall winter weather. For example, has there been a period of dry weather prior to cutting and does my neighbour feel in the mood for mowing the lawn! Taking these external factors into account, the relationship shown in Figure 3 is better than I expected.