gregnga
Are you mulching or smothering your lawn with clippings? Seriously, if your using the mulching system you need to mow pretty frequently, you can't let your grass get high then mulch and not expect to get a lot of clippings. Another thing, grass clippings don't cause thatch in your lawn. If you mow often enough the clippings deteriorate very quickly. Lot of water in the clippings. If you can't mow often enough, bag the clippings and when it isn't high mulch. I use mine for making compost. I won't mulch often cause I want to make compost then shred it up and return to the lawn. Dethatching is no big deal. I do it every year, need it or not.This year everything is so dry here that everyone is going to need to dethatch to rake up the dead debris from dormant grass, especially if you mow high.I have the machine so I dethatch every fall and reseed. I know some people that will want to argue grass clippings do make thatch but they don't Not going to argue that point. You need to adjust your lawn technique some. Grass clippings are good for the lawn but so is applying a bag of fertilizer and bagging the clippings. Your probably doing everything right except your mulching when the grass is to high and the turf can't assimilate so many clippings. Mulching might be overated somewhat but nature has been making it pay off for millions of years. Good luck to you Lawndivot12

What kind of grass do you have? Since you're in Georgia, you may have a warm season grass. Some warm season grasses are the exception to the rule and mulch mowing can contribute to thatch.

I have Bermuda.

As far as mowing to high, I just moved into the house, so I am not sure what the previous owner did. There sure are a lot of old grass clippings that wash up onto the top of the lawn when it rains

Switch to organic program. They will break down a bit faster...

You need to mow more often like 2 times a week...

One more reason why i switched to st augustine grass!

I second Lou's suggestion. If the previous owner over applied chemical fertilizer you may need to put out a topdressing of a good compost to re-establish microbial activity needed to break down organic matter, like grass clippings.

Another suggestion would be to make sure you have a mower designed for mulching and mow frequently enough, preferably when dry, so the mower can make multiple chops of the grass as its cut. Wet grass clumps, of course.

Of course, to each his own. There is more than one way to do a decent job of skinning a cat, so if you want to dance to a different drummer, rather than add your clippings to the local land fill problem, you might want to start a compost pile. Add the compost to the yard and you'll be doing even more to get rid of your thatch problem. Good luck.

"I have been doing it for the last 6 or 7 years".

"I just moved into the house"

So which story are you sticking with?

Dude, bag your bermuda clippings that take forever to break down and if your yard is sloped they will wash into piles in heavy rains and the grass will grow through it making the lawn uneven.

If it was any other grass I'd say mulch or leave the clipping but not bermuda. This stuff... as if it wasn't ecologically damaging enough, I tell you what. For as much fertilizer as it takes to keep it green in GA for a few months, and as invasive as it is, everyone's got a mountain of grass clippings behind their back yard that just grow and grow and grow. The next sub over had to put up a sign at certain areas for people not to dump their clippings there.

and by the way we've covered this a hundred times before. And it usually starts to turn into a debate when someone says leaving your clippings doesn't contribute to thatch.

Where's Dan? He has bermuda lawn and he maintains it organically. Maybe he can offer some insights into whether grass clippings break down faster with organic program.

I agree with you and LawnDivot that mulching is overrated, but only in terms of it providing one fertilizer application as some might suggest. It is, however, still great for the soil in that it feeds the microbes because it returns organic matter, it adds moisture because grass leaves are 70-80 percent water, and it does return some nutrients, just maybe not a full fertilizer application although that is debatable.

If thatch is a problem, mulching certainly will be, too. But, that is thatch-related and not mulching-related. In the case of a thatch problem, mulching will contribute to the thatch layer because they are obstructed by the thatch from reaching the soil so they can properly decompose. They're just sitting there on top of the thatch.

Before you blame mulching on your thatch problem, you need to first examine your own cultural practices. The no longer needed parts of the grass plants are what form thatch. These parts have performed their duties and lived their expected life span - the natural process of attrition. Some grasses produce thatch faster than others by the way they grow. Bluegrass, Bermuda, Zoysia, etc. fall into that category because they have more growing/producing parts - roots, tillers, and rhizomes/stolons - than other grass plants that don't reproduce by rhizomes or stolons. Cultural practices that accelerate growth also accelerate attrition, and thereby also accelerate thatch accumulation. Fertilizing too much or at the wrong times are the common causes. Conversely, practices that retard growth also retards natural attrition, and thereby retards proper decomposition of the organic layer. Improper watering and mowing are usually the culprits. If you don't mow often enough or cut off too much (more than one third), you damage the grass because that impedes proper photosynthesis, which occurs roughly at the center of the grass plant.

Mechanical practices, such as aerating and dethatching, done at the wrong times also contribute to thatch because the grass applies too much energy (food reserves) to trying to repair itself rather than the energy being used to sustain itself when active growth is normally slowed down. For that reason, you don't perform anything mechanical in summer to cool season turf and nothing mechanical too early in spring and not at all in fall for warm season turf. If you plan to aerate or dethatch bermuda, now is the time and preferably before a fertilizer application. If you've fertilized already, then wait until July but not August. Incidentally, neither should be done in 100 degree weather. Actually, not over 90° because it's just too hot. Compacted soil also contributes to thatch, so aerating now is a good idea.

Yes, grass clippings break down faster with an organic program because the soil is friable, the microbes are already being kept busy and are free to do their jobs, and because there is nothing to accelerate plant growth.

Here I am & yes, I maintain my bermuda @ 5/8", I mow every 2 to 3 days & I leave the clippings & no, I don't have an excessive thatch layer. (I dethatch once each spring.)

I'd say there's no question, absolutely mulch your grass clippings.
There's a long list of reasons to mulch your grass clippings.

1) Grass clippings are 80% water and decompose quickly releasing nutrients into your soil.
2) Mulching provides a portion of the lawnÂs yearly fertilizer needs providing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace amounts of micronutients.
3) Mulching reduces the amount of time you spend bagging and fertilizing.
4) Grass clippings donÂt cause thatch. (over watering and over fertilizing do)
5) Mulching reduces yard waste by 20-40%.
6) Mulching reduces the amount of water your lawn needs.

Good day! Dan

PS, I don't use any chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides of any type on my lawn. I fertilize with alfalfa pellets (in spring) and soybean meal (for the rest of the year) and use only a Weed Hound (along with cultural practices) for weed control.

gregnga
I just want to correct a statement here that I made yesterday when I replied to your post above. I said that grass doesn't make or turn into thatch. When saying that I assumed we were talking about cool weather grasses. I was wrong. I am not qualified to make that statement about warm weather grasses. I apologize. I am qualified to say that about cool weather grasses however, and like I originally said I won't debate that cause I know there are those who can't wait to jump on some things.Most times when a home owner has problems with his lawn his problems are self inflicted to his lawn because the owner has no experience in lawn care so he thinks it surely can't be him, so it naturally has to be something else. Decide if you want to be an organic or chemical lawn keeper and do some reading. Raising a lawn isn't rocket science. Sorry about the preaching. Lawndivot12

But dan does not have a sloping yard (If my memory serves me) and more importantly his clipings are teeny-tiny like pencil shavings due to mowing every 2-3 days with a reel mower. This is not the case with 99.99875% of people stuck with bermuda who are using rotary mowers that only go down to an inch or inch and a half and cutting about once a month or every couple of weeks. In that case the clipping are an inch long and contains some of the stems and it doesn't break down fast enough. Bagging it isn't going to solve the worlds problem it's merely going to keep your yard from being uneven.

This is not the case with 99.99875% of people....... and cutting about once a month or every couple of weeks.

I sure don't know who that describes, certainly not 99.99875% of people. More like 1% or 2% of the people. Almost every one of my neighbors has bermuda. (One guy down the block has TTTF under shade trees.) Most of the neighbors aren't anywhere near as fanatical as I am with frequent mowing, but they aren't cutting at 5/8" either. Most mow around 2-1/2" to 3", most all of them mulch mow, most the lawns look pretty decent. A few of em have bagging mowers & use em, but most have mulching mowers & mow once a week. Their lawns don't look as good as mine, but they certainly don't look bad & there's not all kindsa clippings and such laying all over the grass. You certainly cannot mow once a month and think you can easily mulch mow though, you obviously need to mow a minimum of once per week.

Good day, Dan

One more thing.....the kinda folks who will mow once a month down to 1 inch, really don't give a you-know-what about how their lawn looks & really couldn't care less if there's clippings all over their yard. I've seen a house or two in my neighborhood that fall into this category, but it's far closer to 1% than 99% of the people.

Good day, Dan