Can You Aerate Your Lawn In The Winter
For those wanting to aerate in the winter, we wouldn’t recommend doing this. Like we covered above, the best time to aerate is during your lawn’s growing season, which won’t usually be in the winter.
Giving your grass time to regrow and adjust after you’ve aerated is essential for its health, which will be nearly impossible in winter conditions.
For anyone in the tropics, this might not apply to you, but even then, your grass will not be growing as well as it does in the spring or summer.
Diy Vs Professional Services
There are two ways you can go about the process of aerating your lawn: you can do it yourself, or you can call a professional. The difference between what you and a professional can do to help your lawn restore itself back to its former glory is fairly significant due to both their experience and access to higher-grade equipment than you will be able to get. A professional lawn aeration service will also understand how to care for your lawn after the job is done and can be very helpful in making sure you dont need to use their services again.
However, if you decide to aerate your lawn yourself, you can do that too! Instead of waiting for a professional to schedule you into their calendar, you can take time into your own hands and get started today. In addition, you can water your own lawn beforehand and decide how many times to hit areas of especially compacted soil. More often than not, a professional wont have your best interests in mind if it takes up too much of their time getting the job done yourself is a great way to ensure that enough effort was put into the process. However, the biggest differentiating factor separating professional and DIY labor is the amount of money youll need to get the job done. You can save significant costs by renting an aeration machine yourself, and this next section will explain how to aerate your lawn step-by-step!
Using Manual Core Aerator
A manual coring aerator, in our opinion, is the greatest technique to manually aerate a lawn. Unlike other manual aeration methods and instruments, a core aerator raises and removes small chunks of soil rather than pushing them to the side. Because the surplus soil is removed, this procedure decreases the possibility of future compaction.
To use a manual core aerator, simply grab the handle with both hands and drive it into the earth. Most include some kind of foot bar for leverage to make it easier to penetrate the ground. The aerator will extract two cores of the earth as you lift upward.
You can leave these on the grass they will disintegrate in about a week and should not interfere with lawn development. Repeat the process every six inches or so until the entire grass has been aerated. Keep a screwdriver or other small pole available to wipe out the tubes if they become clogged.
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Aerate The Lawn As You Focus On Compacted Areas
Now its time to aerate your lawn. Put on your gardening gear that include rubber gloves and boots. Remember to eat well and take plenty of water prior to the process as you will need quite a ton of energy.
Begin punching into the soil as you focus more on compacted areas. Aim for 20 to 40 holes per square foot. Dont worry if unable to complete the task in one day. You may proceed the following day.
How Much Does Professional Lawn Aeration Cost
As lawn care professionals in Arkansas, we provide you with the tools you need for your lawn to succeed. Our lawn defense package includes fertilizer, weed control, grub control, and aeration. We aim to make this package affordable at just $29/month, yet complex enough to cover all of your needs. We are locally owned and operated, and provide lawn care in Rogers and surrounding areas. Here at Natural State, well make sure your lawn is healthy and green for the long run. Call us at 479-309-9290 or get a free quote online!
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When To Aerate A Lawn
You should aerate a lawn when the soil becomes compacted due to heavy use, thatch buildup or as a results of its clayey nature. Signs of a compacted soil include grass turning yellow, thinning and bald patches.
This shows that your lawn turf is not receiving water and nutrients as required. Without taking any action, all your grass will start wilting and eventually dry. At the same time weeds will take over your lawn since they have better surviving mechanisms than your turf.
Manual Lawn Aerator Tools
Cost: $35 to $75.
This is a relatively inexpensive way to aerate your lawn. These manual tools can be effective, but it takes some effort to punch enough holes to make a difference. They work great for aerating small targeted areas that need special attention, like heavily-used footpaths, around patios, near outdoor steps and house corners. Theyre not intended for your entire lawn.
Something as basic as a pitchfork, like the Radius Garden Stainless Steel Fork, or digging fork, such as the True Temper Spading Digging Fork, can easily do the trick. Theyre extraordinarily simple yet quick and effective. Slightly twisting the fork while its in the ground makes for even better results.
More use-specific tools such as a Yard Butler Lawn Coring Aerator and the Ames Four-Spike Lawn Aerator may give you slightly better results because theyre designed for lawn aeration. Other variations like the Step N Tilt Core Lawn Aerator provide more sophisticated options to a hand tool approach.
If you have the time and energy, all these provide the desired results when treating small areas needing special attention.
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How Often Should You Aerate Your Lawn
Typically, you should only need to aerate a lawn every year or so. Depending on your lawn’s thickness, this can affect how often it is beneficial to aerate.
Mostly, thicker clay soil or lawns with heavy traffic are safe to aerate every 12 months, while sandier, thinner lawns do better with at least two years between aerations. Furthermore, if your lawn is currently healthy, there is no reason to disturb the peace by aerating it.
When To Aerate A Lawn For The Best Results
Depending on your climate, late spring or fall is the best time to aerate a lawn. Brendon Willis, the founder and CEO of Willis Lawn Services in Oklahoma City, explains that ‘typically, in the northern parts of the country that have cool-season grass such as Kentucky Bluegrass, Tall Fescue, or Rye, aerating is done in the fall with the purpose of aerating the soil while overseeding the lawn to re-establish from any summer damage.’
On the other hand, ‘in southern states with a warm season grass such as Bermuda or Zoysia, aerating is typically performed in late spring and early summer months. This gives the turf a whole season to enjoy the benefits of fresh new air and reduced soil compaction.’
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Using Manual Spike Aerator
A manual spike lawn aerator works in the same way that a core aerator does. The fundamental distinction between the two is that a spike aerator has solid points, whereas a core aerator has hollow points. Instead of eliminating soil plugs, the spike aerator pushes holes into the soil.
The procedure is the same: grip the aerator handle with both hands and push it into the dirt, using the foot bar as leverage. Lift out of the earth and move about your lawn, piece by section, until the real grass is aerated.
There are also rolling push spike aerators, which make the job easier and faster. Simply grasp the handle and push the tool about your lawn, giving strong pressure as you walk, and the spikes will roll into the earth.
Can I Aerate My Lawn With A Pitchfork
A lawn can be aerated with a variety of instruments. The cheapest method is to use a pitchfork. This instrument is best suited for aerating tiny regions. Simply poke holes as deep as possible in the turf layer, then rock the fork to widen the holes. As you walk through the lawn, repeat and overlap your path.
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Check The Type Of Grass You Have
Aeration is simple, but nothing is harder than aeration without having proper information. Like knowing the soil type, you also need to gain knowledge about the grass your lawn owns. There are two basic types of lawn grass, including the warm and cold seasons.
The perfect time to aerate is early summer or peak spring for warm-season grass. While for the cold season grass, there is no better season than the fall. So, keep in mind the type of grass for perfect aeration. This would help you keep the lawn healthy, fresh, and green.
Can I Aerate My Lawn Myself
You can aerate on your own schedule instead of waiting for a pro. You can water your own lawn if you need to. Aeration works best when the soil is moist. You can decide how many times to run the aeration machine over the lawn, and hit especially compacted soil many times.
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Poke Holes In The Lawn With Your Pitchfork
Once your grass is mowed and raked, youre almost ready to begin! Before taking hold of your pitchfork, dampen, not soak, the ground. Doing this will make your next step easier.
Grab your pitchfork and make sure you hold it with the tines in a perpendicular orientation to the lawn. Typically, its best to start in a corner for easy tracking of what youve covered. You could even use a marker to track where you have covered. This is best if the lawn youre tending is on the larger size and perhaps requires a few breaks.
If you do place a marker, make sure to not place it directly on the lawn . If you put it directly on the grass, it could leave a dent. After too long, the grass could turn yellow and become patchy, or even struggle to grow back! So, you could use a thin, metal stick that would simply leave a hole in the dirt without damaging the grass.
When pushing the tines of the pitchfork into the grass, push them straight in . Push the tines to their full length of the pitchfork. The reason for this depth is to get to the root zone, as that will be the most effective method. It might be tempting to quickly push it in and pull it back out but take time to ensure the depth will be worthwhile.
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When To Aerate Your Lawn
Its best to aerate your lawn during periods of grass growth. Fall is the best time to aerate Kentucky bluegrass and other cool-season grasses. Meanwhile, warm-season grasses like Bermuda grass have growth during the warmer months, so its best to aerate those as the weather warms up in the spring.
Avoid aerating during the winter when the ground is frozen, or in the summer when the soil is baked hard by the sunyoull thank us for this!
Lawns that have sandy soil should be aerated every two to three years. Lawns with more clay-like soil, or those that see heavy traffic from kids and pets, should be aerated one to two times per year.
If your lawn is looking a bit lackluster, it may be compact and unable to get all of the things it needs to thrive. You can aerate lawn manually to encourage growth and breathe new life into worn, discolored, or missing grass.
Do you have a favorite tool to aerate a lawn by hand? Share your tips below!
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How Often To Core Aerate Your Yard
While youre scheduling the remainder of your annual home maintenance, go ahead and put core aeration on the list, too. Most properties only need this application once a year.
If you use your yard more heavily than most, you can aerate it twice a year. The same goes if your yard grows on heavy clay soil or subsoil. Of course, if you own or maintain a grassy area that sees an excessive amount of foot traffic, you can even aerate it three to five times a year as required. These areas include:
How Do I Aerate My Soil Without A Machine
Aeration is the process of perforating the soil so that air, water, and nutrients may reach the grassroots. If you omit this step, your lawn will not look or feel its best. Learn why aeration is so important and how to aerate your lawn without buying a pricey machine. Aerating is very beneficial on compacted lawn soil. Compact soil forms a barrier that prevents roots from receiving water and nutrients. The holes made by the aerator loosen the soil and allow nutrients to enter.
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Find Out The Soil Type
You may know it or not, but different regions have different soil used for making the perfect lawn. So, before you decide to aerate your lawn, know your soil first. Not knowing the soil may result in early or delayed aeration, resulting in lawn devastation.
Some kinds of soil require short aeration intervals, and some may offer you longer aeration intervals. So, ensure to keep the soil type in mind.
When Should You Not Aerate Your Lawn
Dont aerate your lawn if it doesnt require it. Accumulation of thatch, soil compaction, or poor grass health is all indicators that its time to aerate. Also, do not aerate a wet lawn. Allow the lawn to dry for a few days after a big rain before aerating. If you intend to lay sod, wait until the task is completed before aerating.
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How Do You Determine When To Aerate Your Lawn
Unfortunately, maximum homeowners are uninformed when is the proper time for aeration. If you like that, here are some of the things that you need to know when is the appropriate time for aeration.
If your kids or pets heavily use your lawn for playing in the backyard, you need to aerate the lawn. If your lawn becomes spongy or if the grass dries lots faster, then this can be a hint that your lawn has excessive thatch. To be confirmed of this, you can remove a part of the lawn through a shovel. If you look at the thatch covering the blades of grass that surpasses 1.5 inches, you will move for aeration.
We also suggest you aerate your lawn if your lawn previously faced a lot of stress like construction. Lastly, if your lawn started as sod, then you need to aerate your lawn as the soil layering of sod hostilely affects the transportation of required oxygen, water, and nutrients by your grass.
Lawn Aeration Guide: Typical Scenario Of Diy Aeration
Aerating a lawn can be very time-consuming and pricey. We put together a typical scenario for the DIY homeowner who rents an aerator:
- If you have a trailer, hook it up to your car. If you do not have a trailer, you might need to borrow or rent one, resulting in renting fees.
- Drive to a home improvement retailer from your home, resulting in losing gas and mileage.
- Paying for your aerators rental fee, deposit, and damage insurance
- Load the aerator onto the trailer and drive back home, resulting in losing more gas and milage
- Unload the aerator and begin aerating your yard.
- Depending on where you rented the aerator, you might have to clean out each tine when you are done so you can avoid the cleaning fee.
- Load the aerator back onto the trailer.
- Drive to the store again to return the aerator, resulting in more gas and mileage loss.
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What Are The Benefits Of Aerating A Lawn In Spring And Fall
Spring and fall provide the ideal conditions for aerating soil as part of your annual lawn care cycle because of the relatively mild temperatures combined with plenty of moisture. Chris Lemcke, Technical Director of the franchised lawn care provider spring lawn care and/or fall lawn care routine.
