Sultan sits on the Sultan River, on the way up the highway toward the trails and the passes. Yards step with the terrain. Water comes off the higher ground, crosses a lawn, and heads for the river or the ditch. The hillside is not a lawn just because grass is growing on it. Mowing a wet slope is how machines slide and how you start a wash.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98294 · 2020 population 5,458
Mow the bench
We cut the flat ground and the gentle walkable slope. Steep banks get a trimmer or they get left wild on purpose. Rocks hide in rough grass. We walk a new lot before we drop the deck.
The season starts later and the grass surges when the rain and a warm week overlap. That is when a “every other week” plan falls behind. We say so and we catch it up, rather than scalping a two-week jungle to the crowns.
The ground in Sultan
The useful projects are the ones that make a sloped lot walkable: a gravel path that stays put, a rock wall where the bank is cutting, a drain at the top of the slope so the patio is not the creek. Forest edge is close. Alders and maples lean in, and after a wind the cleanup is limbs, not a few leaves on a patio.
Lawns exist on the benches. They need seed that can take shade at the tree line and a soil that is often thin. We do not promise a golf-course surface against the timber. Native mountain plants hold the cuts better than a bark bed that just slides downhill in January. Access for machines is usually fine along the highway side and tight once you are in the trees. We look at that before we promise a wall.
How we do the work
We mow higher than most people expect, especially from October through May, because a short lawn in this climate is a moss invitation. Blades stay sharp. Dull mowing tears wet grass and leaves the gray tips everyone blames on fertilizer.
Clippings stay on the lawn when they are short. They are not thatch. Bags come out when the grass is long and wet and would clump. We do not mow a saturated yard into ruts and call it service. We skip or we reschedule that corner.
Edges are trimmed. Walks are blown. A mow that leaves a windrow on the sidewalk is not finished.
What we look at first
- How soft the ground is that morning
- Obstacles, toys, and the wet spot we should walk around
- Edges that need a trimmer without scalping the tree wells
- Whether the lawn wants a higher set this month
Height by season
Higher from late fall through spring. Slightly lower in a dry August if the lawn is healthy, never down to the crown. The number on the deck matters less than not seeing soil and not tearing wet tips.
What weekly means here
In the surge of spring, weekly. In a dry August, often every other week. In a soaked January, sometimes not at all. A rigid calendar ruts wet lawns and scalps dormant ones. We mow when the grass is growing and the ground can take the machine.
Clippings
Short clippings stay. They feed the lawn. Long wet clumps get removed because they smother and they track into the house. Bagging every light mow just to have a empty look is how the lawn gets hungry.
More from this crew
- Lawn mowing across Snohomish County
- Lawn aeration in Sultan
- Lawn fertilization in Sultan
- Lawn weed control in Sultan
- Yard cleanup in Sultan
- Lawn mowing in Monroe
- Lawn mowing in Gold Bar
- Lawn mowing in Index
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
