It's called striping. You may be in an area that has both warm and cool season grasses. For the most part the cool season grasses are the ones that are striped most easily by attachments to a lawn mower such as a roller or something as simple as a few 2x4's bolted together. It just bends the grass down so light reflects on it when viewed from a distance.

Mines Zoysia so I guess I'm out. Thanks for the response.

Actually my understanding is that some zoysia actually will stripe. You can always try it by dragging something over it to bend the grass down. Would be curious to know. If using a reel mower to cut below a inch, you could probably also make a second pass where you want your stripes too even though that isn't a real stripe. But A stripe is a stripe is a stripe.

Zoysia and bermuda will stripe. Just look at the Golf courses. But they use a heavy reel mower with front and back rollers. I have a solid front roller and a rear roller on my tru cut and I get stripes. Just not too dramatic.

Here is a link that might be useful: lawnstriper

Don't waste your money on those doofy rollers. I noticed a certain Lowes here had them. Every single one was taped up like it had been returned. Including mine.

Works fine for me. Bought mine on ebay for $5

If you got millions of $ for an acre of land so you never have to back up your mower and need only go forward and also have a team of nasa engineers standing by to rig a device to securly hold it on your mower while letting the roller spin properly and also start using steroids so you can be strong enough to push that thing once it's filled with stones then great. $5 is a bargain.

LMOA Todd - you really are in the twilight zone huh? I dunno how ya come up with some of ur replies, but I almost always find em quite entertaining

Dan

Cutlas just a guess here but are you referring to diagonal as in not parallel with house or street? If so there is no rolling going on here, just someone changing cutting directions going diagonally across the yard and cross cutting (double cut at 90 degree angles). Pretty common practice for people who know what they are doing. You can do the same with Zoysia, Bermuda, or any grass.

Like most of my replies, I came up with my reply through actual experience. Those universal stiper/rollers are novel idea but they are not without a few fundamental problems. As stated, you cannot walk backwards with the mower. I have a habit of going backwards on account of not have a very large lawn to where I can circle around.
Also the things really aren't all that universal. You can make do with the mounting hardware that comes with it but you have to rig something so that it will fit onto your handle bars.

Also it is much bigger in real life than it looks on ebay. And you need to fill it with something heavy. I don't use self propelled mowers so I don't need any additional weight.

I'll tell you what though, I've actually put a great deal of thought into what will make the best striper and while I know what this material is, I haven't found a way to make a universal attachment to work with every mower. Basically, it's a piece of flexible rubber. Many lawn mowers already have a thin piece of rubber on the back well this would work in that fashion only much thicker. Doing this will put a nice stripe by bending the grass blades yet it's not heavy so it's a cinch to use. Also you can go forward or backwards with your mower and it doesn't matter. And you can disengage it easily on the fly with no tools.

So now you know a little more in depth the problems with the universal lawn roller/striper. Yes it will bend over your grass but it's not without issues. For the $50 retail price new, you can make something that works even better out of 2x4's or rubber like with my technique.

I had a neighbor once that liked to stripe his st. augustine by simply pushing the mower in exactly the same place every time. This would cause the wheels to leave ruts in between the rows or passes he would make. It was a nice effect but not official MLB stripes. For that you need a cool season grass and more specifically, something that is long enough to bend over for the effect. It is much more noticeable with long grass.

Thanks for all the replies. I think that texasweed is more what I was talking about. Though those yards on lawnstriper.com are pretty awesome. I don't think either technique would work for me easily, as my yard is basically a perimeter for the large shrub planting bed in the midst of my property.

I guess the roller deal would work if I mowed straight angles around the bed, giving the stripes on the long parts and a checkerboard effect at the corners. As a matter-of-fact that might look pretty cool! Something to think about...

Cutlas, just curious how is the new lawn comming along?