[STI_MECE]

Clumping of grass will also depend your HOC when cutting versus how tall the grass actually was. The less grass you cut off the tops at once, will leave the yard clear of grass clippings versus cutting alot off at once

IMO as long as your not trying to cut 1inch HOC and doing it over a pile of sand, your blades should be fine. Big rocks and sticks will nick the blades, be sure to filethose out.

You have a push mower, so your mower was probably really only designed to run 1 type of blade which if its like a new honda mower, its that twin cut micro blade. I would not bother trying a different type because you most likely cant make adjustments to your cutting deck like you could with a zero turn.

Its best to keep the entire cutting edge of the blade in good condition otherwise it will wear differently. If you can get 1 year-2 years worth out of blade I would skip the sharpening all together and just buy new ones and keep on. You will never ever get the cutting performance out of a fresh factory blade versus sharpening. In other words, you might sharpen a 1 year old blade, but you best believe its performance will diminish in 6 months, thus leaving you are sharpening it twice a year.

A sharp blade gets duller faster than a semi dulled edge.

Sincerely, Guy who rotates his blades every week (but I have sand and a commercial zero turn)