What’s The Best Height For Cutting Grass?

The best height for cutting grass depends on the kind of lawn you have.

How high should you cut your grass? That’s what I wanted to know, too. I’ve been trying to figure out what is the best height for cutting grass. After some experimentation and much trial and error I have figured out the ideal height to mow my lawn.

Some of the difficulty in determining the right height for mowing the lawn is that my wife and I don’t have just one type of grass. We’ve eschewed the monoculture of growing just one kind of grass and let Mother Nature take over.

If it’s green, and it’s in the yard, we mow it… All the green stuff, the grass, the weeds, the whatevers, are part of our lawn! Doing this saves us time from weeding and means we don’t have to use chemicals harmful to pollinators to keep our lawn looking the way we want it to. But then there’s another problem: it’s tough finding the best height to cut the lawn.

How High Should You Mow Your Lawn Grass?

When I first bought my house years ago, I cut the grass around 2” high. That seemed like it was tall enough for the grass to grow while not being too tall. I thought it looked nice.

Then I noticed something… I was scalping the grass in areas of the lawn where there were some irregularities in the height of the soil – especially high spots in the yard. Soon I learned that 2” is too short to cut grass in our yard.

I started to mow the lawn higher and higher, moving the mowing blade up from 2” to 3”, then 3” to 4”. It was around the 4” mark that I saw the newly cut Bahia and St. Augustine grass blades were sort of flopping over on themselves. I didn’t like that look at all!

So, I moved the mower blade down to 3”, and that seems to be the best height for cutting grass in our yard.

After doing that, the grass looks nice and clean when I cut it. And at that height the mower also cuts much of the lower-growing and creeping weeds – er, “other grass” – in the lawn, too.

Here’s The Best Height For Mowing Grass

I wanted to find out what heights (plural) are good for cutting grass. So, I consulted the University of Florida IFAS Extension and University of California Agricultural & Natural Resources websites. They offer this information on optimal mowing heights for different kinds of grass:

  • Annual ryegrass – 1.5” to 2”
  • Bahia – 3” to 4”
  • Bermudagrass – 0.5” to 1.5”
  • Buffalograss – 1” to 2”
  • Carpetgrass – 1.5” to 2”
  • Centipedegrass – 1.5” to 2”
  • Colonial bentgrass – 0.5” to 1”
  • Creeping bentgrass – Lower than 0.5”
  • Hard fescue – 1.5” to 2.5”
  • Kentucky bluegrass – 1.5” to 2.5”
  • Perennial rye – 1.5” to 2.5”
  • Rough bluegrass – 1” to 2.5”
  • St. Augustine – 2.5” to 4”
  • Tall fescue – 1.5” to 3”
  • Zoysia – 1” to 2”

Why You Should Mow Grass High In The Summer

While the list of grass cutting heights above should be followed during much of the lawn-mowing season, you’ll want to go by a different rule of thumb during the most intense summer heat. You see, during the middle of summer, the best height for cutting grass is wherever the highest blade setting is on your mower.

Mowing your grass higher in the summer will help its roots grow deeper, warding off heat stress and drought. When the grass blades grow taller, the shade will help curtail weed growth. And the higher you cut your yard, the less frequently you’ll need to mow it.