Stop Bagging Grass Clippings—Here’s What to Do With Them Instead

The scent of newly-mown grass in summer is well-loved by many people, but disposing of grass clippings from a large lawn requires some effort. Some folks just let the clippings remain where they fall, some rake them up and discard them as yard waste, while still others reuse them in various ways.

We spoke with some gardening experts in lawn care and landscaping to get their thoughts on the best ways to reuse grass clippings in ways that promote a sustainable approach to lawn care.

Before Using Grass Clippings

Before deciding how to reuse grass clippings, it’s worth considering how best to use your mower to produce the best size of clippings. David McCary, a sustainable landscaping expert, recommends frequent mowing, especially during the height of the growing season (in summer or after a lot of rain).

Mowing frequently means your clippings stay short, which means they will decompose quickly, making it easier to integrate them into uses like composting, mulching, and grasscycling. McCary also points out that shorter grass clippings are also less likely to form large or heavy clumps that might smother patches of lawn.

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Methods for Reusing Grass Clippings

These methods are all fairly straightforward and don’t require any special equipment or outlay of expenses. Reusing grass clippings in any of these ways promotes sustainability and can be part of a low-impact approach to gardening and landscaping.

Composting

When making DIY compost, it’s recommended to balance green vs. brown materials, and grass clippings are one of the most readily available and effective green materials for composting. Unlike weeds, which some gardeners throw into their compost, grass clippings are less likely to reseed or resprout in the garden.

Ward Dilmore, a professional landscaper and landscape designer for Petrus Landscape, considers grass clippings one of the best additives to a compost pile. They create a good balance of green and brown landscape debris, and help increase the temperature of the compost, which he says helps accelerate decomposition.

Mulch

Grass clippings can be used for mulch, though, as McCary points out, this isn’t necessarily an aesthetic most homeowners want, as most prefer a more traditional wood chip mulch. But if you don’t mind the look, or have a less visible spot, mixing the clippings with your leftover leaves from spring clean-up makes a perfectly acceptable mulch.

Soil Amendments

Soil amendments are key to improving soil nutrients and texture. You can add grass clippings to your compost and then add it to soil, or cut out the wait time and add the grass clippings directly when you’re mixing in other amendments like manure, peat moss, or wood ash.

Grasscycling

This is a somewhat fancy word for doing nothing, like leaving your grass clippings where they fall on the lawn after mowing (also sometimes called “mulch mowing”). McCary says this method is not only the easiest way to deal with grass clippings, but also provides nutrients for the lawn and lessens the need for fertilizer, which can be expensive.

Lasagna Gardening

Grass clippings are a great ingredient for a layer or lasagna gardening (named for the physical principles being similar to making a lasagna). You can place an entire layer of grass clippings over layers of leaves, pine needles, or wood chips, and this allows layers of green and brown materials to break down together.

As Dilmore says, grass clippings help raise temperatures when added as a compost ingredient, helping to speed up decomposition, so they’re an excellent addition to your layer gardening project.

Cover Compost Odors

Most folks love the smell of freshly-cut grass. Fresh grass clippings are great for masking naturally unpleasant odors in the garden by simply using them to cover the offensive materials. This can work particularly well with smelly compost bins or freshly-spread layers of compost or manure, or that bucket of used coffee grounds that has gotten a bit “ripe.”

Just sprinkle fresh grass clippings over the top, making a layer at least an inch thick, and they will mask those odors nicely, providing a fresh green grassy scent instead.