What Does Compacted Soil Mean
Like flour when baking, with enough pressure pushing it down, soil can become compacted. Soil can be compacted by large machines during home construction, heavy foot traffic, or even hard rains. When soil is compacted, the particles of soil are pressed so tightly together that the soil isnt porous enough to hold water, oxygen, or other nutrients that it needs to thrive. Without these necessities, your grass becomes weak, often browning easily and turning visibly thinner. The dense soil can squeeze grass roots, making it hard for them to function and stealing the lush green appearance your lawn once had.
How Do I Fix Compacted Soil On My Lawn
If youve noticed any of these signs in your lawn, the odds are its compacted, especially after a long, hot summer. When your lawn is compacted, the best thing you can do is aerate it! Aeration involves perforating the soil of your lawn with small holes to allow the air, water, and nutrients to reach the roots of your grass that compacted soil prevents. Check out our aeration services and let our experts fix your compacted lawn today!
What Causes Soil Compaction And What Are Its Effects
Figure 1. Soil compaction can occur during construction activities due to repeated operation of heavy machinery, especially when soil is wet.
Soil compaction occurs by application of mechanical forces, such as repeated or continuous wheel or foot traffic. Increased compaction of soils can occur due to construction activities , certain repetitive crop planting or tillage practices, or using heavy equipment to maintain residential landscapes. High pressure on the soil surface compresses soil particles into a close-packing arrangement that decreases the total pore volume between particles. Soil density increases as more particles are packed into a smaller space . The degree of soil compaction is affected by soil texture and moisture content , and of course by the degree and distribution of load pressure placed on the soil.
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Dealing With Desire Paths And Shortcuts
Maybe your lawn sees consistent traffic in a consistent spot, like a shortcut to the bus stop for neighborhood kids.
That unsanctioned route can become a path of bare dirt thanks to the added stress and compaction, called a desire path. Those trails happen where pedestrians find the easiest route from A to B regardless of sidewalks.
But you have options even if that desire path ends up in an undesirable place like your lawn.
Trees and shrubs can direct traffic. Ornamental shrubs or trees can take the place of fences. You may want to go ahead and make it permanent with pavers, mulch or wood chips.
If thats out of the question, compaction problems can be mitigated. Add some coarse sands or other materials like calcined clay where that traffic occurs.
Your lawn itself can also help stop compaction.
Cutting higher and dethatching turf can help absorb some of the pressure and keep it from compacting the soil.
What Is Soil Aeration
Many homeowners fail to understand the importance of aerating. Aeration creates pore space in the soil for water, nutrients, and air. Generally, larger pore spaces hold air, and smaller pore spaces hold water and nutrients. Aeration can be improved by core or solid tine aeration, which creates openings in the soil profile. Many times, soil aeration can be improved with the application of specialized soil surfactants. The benefits of aeration are extensive, and include:
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Using Aeration To Improve Your Lawn
Often, the speed and quality of the improvement in the lawn is surprising. Sometimes it makes more of an impression than a fertilisation treatment. The grass may have all the right nutrients in the soil, but if the roots have no space the grass plant will struggle.
Aeration can be the bridge between an average lawn, and a fantastic lawn you are proud of.
Aeration should be the first step in bringing an old lawn back to its best. Compaction should be the first problem to look for when diagnosing lawn problems. Solving a compacted soil will see a solution to many other problems in the lawn. Moss will reduce, the grass will be stronger and resist disease and it will be greener.
How Do I Prevent Compaction
The best way to keep lawn compaction under control is to aerate your lawn on a regular basis. This will prevent compaction from becoming a problem. Not only is it much easier this way, but it will keep the grass fresher. Healthy soil will also drain faster, prevent thinning and be home to a beautiful, healthy lawn.
I recommend hollow core aerating your lawn at least once every two years to keep compaction at bay.
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How To Fix Compacted Soil In Your North Texas Lawn
Soil compaction is a major problem here in North Texas due to our clay-like soil conditions. Thats a concern considering the fact that the secret to a healthy lawn is in the soil! Most people dont realize that they cant have a healthy and thriving lawn if their soil health is poor. And compacted soil is a big part of the problem! A lawn is really going to struggle to grow in dry, compacted soil.Fortunately, the compacted soil in your lawn can be fixed.In this article, well talk about what to do about compacted soil so that you can get the lawn that you truly desire.
How Does Compacted Soil Affect Lawns
Compacted soil affects lawns in a variety of ways. To begin with, compact soil is often too tight for roots to penetrate. Your grass depends on its roots for water and mineral nutrients. When roots can no longer penetrate, your grass will stop growing, and new blades of grass will stop replacing older, dead blades. Over time, your lawn will start to look thin and unhealthy.
Worse yet, compacted soil can even be too tightly packed for water to get through. When this happens, even healthy blades of grass will no longer get the water they need, since the water wont be getting past the surface of the ground. This can lead to your lawn turning yellow and grass dying off. If your grass is dying and you cant figure out why, go outside and try to stick a spade in the ground. If you cant, the soil is almost certainly too compact for water to penetrate efficiently.
Finally, compacted soil can affect more than your lawn. If water can no longer penetrate the soil, it will flow across the surface to the most convenient spot. If that spot is a basement window or a crack in a foundation wall, you can quickly end up with a flooded basement. This can lead to major damage, and expensive homeowners insurance claims.
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Fix Lawn Soil With Consistent Fertilizing
Fertilizer is food for your lawn, but its also food for your soil.Its food in a bag. And just like the food in a bag you pick up at the drive-through, its not all the same.
You can grab a bag full of a triple-cheeseburger and large fries, or a crisp healthy salad. Make the healthy choice for your lawns food. That means slow-release, granular fertilizer. Its more expensive, but it breaks down slowly, giving you consistent benefits.Look for blends that also contain organic nutrients to feed your soil.Youll get premium professional-grade formulations of granular fertilizer from RainMaster. Not every lawn fertilizer service offers this.
What Causes Soil Compaction
According to Michigan State University, soil compaction occurs when soil particles are packed closely together, and it tends to be more common with heavier soils like clay and loam. However, if youre using heavy equipment on your lawn or in the garden, it can cause a problem. Even wheel tracks from a riding lawn mower are enough to compact your soil.
The problem may also be long-termevents that are happening to your soil year over year. The pore spaces can be reduced to the point that air and water cannot move freely and plant roots cannot grow easily into the surrounding soil. The soil could remain overly wet longer than is healthy for the plants growing there.
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S To Assess Soil Compaction
To manage compaction, homeowners first need to determine if soil health is at risk due to compaction and, if present, the extent of compaction. In the laboratory, soil density is determined by weighing dried soil of carefully sampled soil volumes this is not feasible for most homeowners. However, soil compaction risk often can be evaluated in the field through a combination of many different techniques: visual clues, a simple test of soil hardness, and the proper use of soil compaction testers. Possible solutions to remediate compaction in ones yard can then be implemented if compaction is occurring.
How Can I Compact The Soil In 5 Easy Steps And Without Using A Machine
Have you ever tried soil compaction? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Why Does The Soil Need To Breathe
Like us, bacteria, worms and other organisms in your soil need access to air and water to survive. They live within the soil, and so the soil must have a way for these organisms to access these elements.
A compacted soil is much more dense than a healthy soil, so it has no space to hold moisture and air. The organisms that contribute to a healthy soil ecosystem, struggle to survive. The soil dies.
A healthy soil is the key to a healthy lawn, so it is very important to manage how compacted your lawn is.
Clay soils do tend to compact more easily than sandy soils. This is because the particles of clay are much smaller than sand or loam. They can bind together in a dense pattern and stick together.
Do All Lawns Need Aerating
All lawns enjoy an aeration treatment. From the point of view of a domestic lawn, it is not possible to aerate it too much! They will always react well with lush growth and increased vigour.
The very best premiership pitches have a spiking machine run over them after every match. It opens up the soil and aids recovery, especially in the most prone areas such as by the goal mouth.
On lower league pitches, the goalmouth area always struggles top keep a good grass layer. This is because the goalie spends 90 minutes standing on it, squashing the air out of the soil. It compacts the soil and prevents the grass from being able to recover for next time. Running an aerator over this area after use prevents this and aids grass recovery.
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How Do You Know If Your Lawn Is Affected
There are many signs that could indicate your soil is compacted. Generally, soil that has been compacted leads to a lawn that is less-healthy, making the lawn susceptible to afflictions from weeds and diseases.
Some other signs that your lawn may be suffering from compaction include the appearance of shallow tree roots, puddles of water across various low-lying areas of the yard, and barren dirt patches.
One method to test if your lawn is compacted is to try putting a shovel in the ground. If the fork of the shovel struggles to penetrate the soil or doesnt go in very far, then you may have an issue of compacted soil.
What Is Lawn Compaction
Around half of the volume of a healthy soil is gaps and channels. These channels allow air and moisture to pass down into the soil, allowing it to breathe. These channels promote the growth of bacteria and other beneficial organisms. They also give the roots of the grass space to grow.
Compaction is the act of compressing the soil so that the gaps are no longer there. This squeezing reduces the amount of air and moisture that the soil can hold. Compaction suffocates the soil, and the grass suffers as a result.
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How To Pinpoint Compacted Soil
Soil compaction keeps plants from getting proper access to nutrients, water, and air. This will eventually cause your grass to lose color, wither and die. If youre seeing brown spots in your lawn, or if water is ponding in your yard after rainfall, your soil may be compacted.
Another sign of soil compaction is thatch. A thick layer of thatch can starve your grass even in the best conditions. If the nutrients cant reach the plant, it will turn brown. Thatch buildup happens if there is poor soil aeration and drainage.
A way to find out if your soil is compacted is by determining its bulk density. Bulk density is an indicator of soil compaction. You can calculate it by dividing the dry weight of your soil by its volume. This volume includes the volume of soil particles and the volume of pores among soil particles.
If you find out that the density of the soil is not where it should be, youll have to take steps to loosen it.
Compaction Cure: Core Aeration
If your soil is compacted, lawn aeration is the best way to deal with it, Miller says.
Both solid-tine and hollow-tine aeration are good, but hollow-tine core aerating is the more effective option, she said.
A pitchfork driven into the ground and pushed back and forth may be enough for a single small area of light compaction. For larger turf areas, youll need an aeration machine.
The best bet is a core aerator, a machine that forces tines into the soil, pulling plugs of it out of your lawn. That creates gaps in the lawn for the root system to grow into
And when it comes to proper aeration, timing is everything. If you want your turf to recover properly, aerate when its still got the best of its growing season ahead of it.
Warm-season grasses can be aerified starting in late spring through late summer. Cool-season grasses are best aerified in early fall or early spring.
Spiking and slicing are two other methods, but they dont actually remove any soil from the lawn. For that reason, spiking and slicing can actually compact the soil further.
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Limit Lawn Traffic To Help Compacted Soil
Those signs that say Keep Off the Grass are actually pretty smart.If you have compacted soil, limit repeated foot traffic in the same areas.That means encourage your kids to play on the whole lawn, not just in one area.
It means changing your mowing patterns so youre not walking the exact same path every time you mow.
How Soil Compaction Is Hurting Your Lawn
Homeowners prioritize keeping a healthy lawn, and it all begins with the consistency and health of your soil. The condition and overall density of your soil affect your yards appearance and how well your grass can grow. Its encouraged to regularly check your lawn for signs of potential underlying problems, conduct preventative measures, and be proactive if you notice any symptoms. From weed infestation and fading grass color to lawn diseases and excessive thatch levels, soil compaction can cause your lawn to diminish over time if not correctly cared for.
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How Do I Measure My Lawn For Compaction
The professional way to measure the compaction level of a lawn is to use a compaction tester. This is a special tool which gives a pressure reading to the difficulty of driving a probe into the soil. The more air channels in the soil, the easier it is to spike it with the probe. All reputable lawn experts carry such a probe.
To measure the compaction level in your own lawn, the first step is to stand back and have a good look it. Select the areas which you think would be most susceptible to compaction. This can be the area near an entrance, along a path to a shed, or an area under the shade of a tree. Compaction can also be in areas of old paths or previous building foundations in the lawn.
Then, using a tool with a spike on the end such as a garden fork, try to drive the fork into the ground with your boot. Do this all over different areas of the grass.
If you can drive a fork in at least six inches using only a small amount of weight, you dont have a compaction problem. For most lawns, this is what we are after. Unfortunately, this is very rare indeed!
If you can drive the fork in, but have to use a significant amount of weight behind it, then your lawn needs aerating.
Sometimes it is almost impossible to penetrate even the top surface of the lawn as it is far too hard. If you find that this is your lawn, then you need an aeration treatment. It will most likely need repeating within the next six months to get it back to a usable state!
