Garden Guy said:

Dave wrote:

Mulching your lawn is good practice during a drought season

I don't buy the mulching argument.

/Valid/ reasons?


In my experience, mulched grass creates a sponge layer at the surface
and any rain that comes in the summer (we're having a drought, like we
usually seem to do every summer, here in SW-Ontario).

I'm sorry, but the above sentence appears as an incomplete thought. "...and
any rain...", what? Are you saying that the dried grass clippings soak up
all of the rain? You have a source for that?


When we get our pathetic quick thunder storms, the rain rolls quickly
off our hard-packed clay soils.

Ever consider watering between the rains? If you soak your lawn, properly,
you shouldn't have the runoff. You can't blame the grass clippings for your
neglect.

Any rain that doesn't run off gets absorbed by the dried mulch layer,

How much rainfall? Saying a "thunderstorm", no matter how "pathetically
quick", usually involves rainfall on the heavier side. There's not enough
surface area on the (especially, dried) grass clippings to absorb any
measurable amount of moisture. It may slow the water down, in route to the
soil, but it certainly doesn't absorb all of the water.

which then gives it back to the
atmosphere when it dries. It prevents the moisture from reaching and
being absorbed into the soil surface.

You'll lose /some/ to evaporation, but being shaded by the grass itself, a
good amount will reach the soil. A lot will be determined by the weather
conditions (does the sun come out, right after the storm, or does it remain
overcast?, etc.), as well as the general conditions of the area (full sun?
shade? etc.).


You might say "well, just add better top soil to your lawn". That
doesn't work if we're talking about city-owned portion of your front
yard,

Why can't you improve the turf's conditions at the easement?

or the grass circle in the middle of a court.

Who cares? That's the city's problem, not the homeowners.


It is universally said that mulched grass contains nutients that are
great to give back to your lawn.

And, you disagree with that? Are you saying that grass clippings have no
nutritional value to turf?


Well, if cut grass was so great, then why don't municiple yards that
collect yard waste accept it?

Because of all of the chemicals that people put on their lawns.

These places take yard waste (tree
branches mostly, maybe pine needles and other stuff you rake) and
mulch/compost it and sell it. But they won't take grass.

Do you apply chemicals to your trees and shrubs, on a regular basis (as
regular as your lawn?).

[...]


The truth is that municiple garbage collection and yard-waste
management knows that cut grass is useless and nutrient-poor (full of
carbon mostly)

Wow, Einstein, "full of carbon mostly"? They're living organisms. Of
/course/ they're 'mostly carbon'. They're also absolutely loaded with
nitrogen (and a lot of other nutrients). Do some homework, eh?

so they create this con-job and tell people it's better
for your lawn to mulch.

"Truth"?

Source?

They just don't want to deal with cut grass
so they want you to just leave it in your grass,

Again, source?

where it will create thatch that will thin out your grass,

Please, give us your understanding of what "thatch" is.

harbor bugs and disease

They exist quite well in a lawn that gets "bagged". What bugs and diseases
do you speak of, that only exist in "mulched" lawns? Or, alternatively,
provide a source stating that bugs and diseases are higher in lawns that
are "mulched".

and soak
up the little, precious water you get in the summer and act like a
barrier to prevent the water from getting to the parched soil
underneath.

Go buy a sprinkler and quit blaming the grass clippings for your poor lawn
conditions.

Good grief, you /really/ sound like Stubby.

--

Eggs

-If a cow laughs hard, does milk come out its nose?