A Twin Cities season takes a median of 19 cuts — we know because we replayed twenty-six of them. Here is the season's actual clock, and the rules the schedule follows.
Ask three lawn services how many cuts a season takes and you will get three confident guesses. We replayed 26 real Twin Cities seasons of daily weather through the same model that schedules the work, so the answer is measured: a median of 19 cuts, never fewer than 15 nor more than 22, first cut late April, last around mid-October — a season of about 170 days.
Mowing visits one Minneapolis season actually needed · 26 real seasons, 2000–2025, replayed through the production model
The mowing year, month by month · median visits across the same seasons
Dormancy is keyed to rainfall rather than temperature — a lawn in a dry August stops growing while the thermometer says it should be thriving. Get that backwards and you bill somebody for cuts their lawn did not need.
In a drought the schedule stops, deliberately, even though stopping declines revenue. A typical season holds around eight would-be visits back for exactly this kind of reason.
Never cut sooner than the grass can recover, even after a rain-fuelled growth spurt — the one-third rule brings the blade back to target without stressing the plant.
Plenty of households hold a “No Mow May” pledge, and the schedule honors it: declare your season start and mowing waits — while growth is still tracked — so your first cut queues the day your pledge ends, not a week later.
We do not measure your individual lawn’s square footage from imagery yet — seasonal work is modeled on weather and season length, not on your parcel’s own dimensions. The count of cuts is the measured part; your price per cut is between you and whoever mows. More on how the modeling works: the intelligence page.