Mowing height is how high the deck is set for the grass that is actually in the yard. The page that states it is St. Augustine mowing height. St. Augustine, including the Floratam we install, is cut at 3.5 to 4 inches. Bahia can take a slightly lower cut. Zoysia wants a shorter, tighter cut than St. Augustine and grows more slowly once it is established. One height for every lawn is how yards go thin.
The height is not a style choice. On sand, a taller St. Augustine leaf shades the soil and keeps the roots working. Drop it and weeds take the opening. Shade does not justify a shorter cut. A lawn in partial shade needs the leaf more, not less. Deep shade is not solved by any deck setting. That ground should be a bed.
What it looks like here
A correct St. Augustine cut looks full, not shaved. You should not see soil between the plants after we leave. Stripes are fine. Scalp marks are not. In May through September the grass may need that cut every week because five or six days of wet-season growth is enough to make a biweekly visit too heavy. In the cool months the same height still applies. The gap between visits is what changes.
Taking more than about a third of the blade in one pass is how clippings become a mat. The height and the interval work together. A tall lawn brought down to 3.5 inches in one aggressive lap is still a scalp if most of the green was removed to get there. We would rather recover it in stages. Send a close photo of the grass if you are unsure which one you have before you ask for a deck number.
What we do about it
On the first visit we set the baseline: the height for that turf, edging, trimming around obstacles, and a blow-off. We do not mow a saturated yard. Ruts compact the sand. We reschedule for a dry window. We flag fungus patterns from night watering and thin sunny patches. We do not spray either one. A residential visit is $35–$75. Acreage is quoted from the property.
If you do not know which grass you have, send a close photo before you ask for a number on the deck. We will set it to the plant, not to a neighbor's preference. The heights and the exceptions are on St. Augustine mowing height.