When To Aerate Lawn In Michigan

Aeration Involves Poking Tiny Holes Into Your Soil

Many people know that lawns need routine mowing and fertilization, but not as many know about aeration and why their lawns need it. Basically, the process of aeration is done to poke tiny holes into your soil. Those holesallow your soil to loosen up and let key nutrients like moisture, sunlight, and oxygen pass through more easily to the roots of your grass. Generally, we also pair aeration with overseeding so that the seeds can fall deeper into the soil to create a deeper, stronger root system and germinate at a higher rate.

Aeration also helps to alleviate the buildup of thatch, which is a layer of built-up lawn debris that can keep your soil from absorbing nutrients. A fall aeration will help the lawn prepare for winter dormancy since it will be easier for the grass to get access to the nutrients it needs to be strong and healthy.

Why You Might Need To Aerate Your Lawn

Soil compaction is one of the top reasons you might need to aerate. Compacted soil will keep vital nutrients from feeding the roots of your grass. Check your lawn’s soil with a screwdriver to see if it’s hard and compacted.

Other signs that you may need to aerate include:

Its vital that your lawn gets the air, water, and nutrients it needs. Water and fertilizer wont do your lawn much good if the soil is too compacted or covered in a thick layer of thatch. Your grass roots will suffer.

Fertilizing Before And After Aerating And Overseeding

Many people wonder if its better to fertilize the lawn before or after aerating and overseeding. The answer to that question is yes. Theres a huge difference. Its better to fertilize the lawn after aerating and overseeding. Youll see different results depending on your timing and choices.

Its a common mistake to think that its better to fertilize the soil before overseeding. People might think that the new seeds will benefit from previously completed fertilization. Thats usually wrong. You shouldnt fertilize a lawn before overseeding. The reason is that the existing grass can use all the fertilizer before the new seeds start to grow.

Fertilizing the lawn before overseeding will fertilize the existing established grass. Fertilizing the lawn after overseeding will fertilize both the old and the new grass. Thats best for the lawn.

You dont have to fertilize your lawn right after overseeding. You can wait for two weeks before you fertilize the lawn. You might want to do a soil test to know what kind of fertilizer is the best for your lawn.

A soil test will tell you if your soil has too much or a too small amount of natrium , phosphorus , or potassium . Using the wrong kind of NPK fertilizer for your lawn can worsen the imbalance. A soil test helps you to optimize NPK ratios and make better decisions.

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Water And Keep Off The Lawn

Finally, you will want to water your lawn for about 2-3 weeks.

You will want to water your lawn at least every other day to ensure your little baby grass is able to come in properly.

Be sure to follow the best practices for watering the lawn.

For best results water in the early morning before the sun rises.

Give Your Lawn The Breath Of Fresh Air That It Needs With Our Core Aeration Services

Its imperative to mow, fertilize and water your lawn to ensure its overall health. Lawn aeration is a key component of a beautiful lawn. Core aeration involves the removal of small soil plugs or cores from the lawn. A specially-designed machine extracts ½ to ¾ inch diameter cores of soil and deposits them onto the lawn. Proper aeration of your lawn on a regular basis will reduce thatch, soil compaction and allow more air, water and fertilizer into the root system, promoting a healthier and greener lawn. Let Independent Lawn Service get you on the right track today!

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Michigan: How To Care For Your Lawn In September

While Bermuda grass lawns can make it through the hot days of summer without losing quality, most fescue lawn varieties need time to rejuvenate and replenish. Regardless of which category your lawn falls under, September is the perfect month to spend time in the yard. For those with cool season lawns – Kentucky blue grass, tall fescue, and fine fescue – it’s especially important. The jobs that really need addressed include aerating, fertilizing, planting, and over seeding.

• Aerating. For lawns that take a beating during the summer months, aeration is important. September is the perfect month for aerating and can improve the air exchange between the soil and air, enhance fertilizer consumption, reduce water runoff, loosen compacted soil, increase heat stress tolerance, and develop resiliency.

• Fertilizing. September is also the ideal month for fertilizing. Cool season lawns need to be fertilized with a pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet. It’s best to do this both in September and again in November.

• Planting. Notice any bare or thinning spots in your lawn? September is the ideal month to plant new seeds in Michigan. Start by pulling weeds. Next, prepare a proper bed, and then plant. For best results, keep bare spots covered with a light mulch or straw to ensure the ground remains moist until the grass is fully established.

CD Lawn Maintenance & Supply

We Provide Aeration In Both The Spring And The Fall Usually In September Or April

During the year, your lawn gets a lot of traffic on it, whether it’s from recreational use or routine lawn mowing. When the grass has weight put on it, the soil underneath hardens and becomes compacted, inhibiting nutrients from reaching the roots of your grass. We fix this by performing core aeration in either the spring, usually in April, or in the fall, around September.

Our core aeration services are available to homes, businesses, and HOAs throughout Macomb, Shelby, Chesterfield, and the nearby cities and townships in Michigan.

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Aeration For A Healthy Lawn

The root system of your lawn is constantly renewing itself by sending out new grass shoots. This new growth needs loose soil in order to develop and mature properly. If your lawns soil is heavy and compacted, these new roots remain near the surface. This leads to a dry lawn with a thick layer of dead thatch. Neither of these conditions are optimal for a vibrant and nutrient-rich lawn.

Benefits of an aerated lawn include:

• Opening up the soil
• Breaking up the top layer of thatch

• Helping new grass roots flourish
• Allowing the lawn to recover from any weather-related stress

Why Should You Aerate Your Lawn

Grass roots need air, water, and nutrients to grow thick and strong just like any other plant. When soil becomes compacted, even slightly, it inhibits the flow of the essentials that support thicker, healthier turf growth.

A layer of compacted soil just 1/4 to 1/2 inches thick can make a significant difference in the health and beauty of your lawn.

Aeration creates holes down into the soil to alleviate compaction so air, water, and nutrients can reach your grass roots.

Deprived of their basic needs by compacted soil, lawn grasses struggle in stressful situations, such as heat and low rainfall, and lose their healthy, rich color and strength. This is when your grass starts to look a little more like hay and feel a little more like it, too.

Your grass will gradually thin and eventually die out completely for lack of access to the essential nutrients it needs.

Even a single aeration session can open the avenue for these essentials to reach their mark and put your lawn back on an upward trend.

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A Word From The Guru Of Lawncare

Did you know the warmer temperatures and higher humidity in Northern Michigan over the past two decades are mostly due to warmer overnight lows? However, herein lies the problem: Fungi in your lawn thrive in warm, moist conditions, and the longer it stays warm and wet, the more trouble it causes for your lawn.

Our Core Aeration Process

During the core aeration process, we will run our core aeration machine over the entire surface of your lawn. In doing so, small cores are removed from your soil. The resulting small holes allow resources such as nutrients, air, sunlight, and moisture to reach the roots of your grass more easily. The small cores are deposited on top of your grass and we recommend leaving them, as they will return their nutrients back into the soil as they decompose.

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Lawn Aeration : Michigan And Cold Climates

Theres nothing better than a lush green lawn that lets you spend time with your family in the backyard, laughing and having fun. But, to keep grass healthy, techniques such as aeration are important.

This leads us to the questions, what is aeration, and when is the best time to aerate your lawn?

Simply put, lawn aeration allows your grass to breathe.

Throughout the winter, dead grass sits for months at a time. This layer of built-up components of dead grass, including stems and roots, is called thatch.

Once it builds up to more than half an inch thick, thatch can become a detriment to your lawn. Along with compacted soil, thatch created a thick layer that prevents the roots of your lawn from absorbing water and nutrients properly.

The process of lawn aeration is done by first removing the thatch layer, often with a rake. From there, tiny holes are made in the lawn, allowing water and nutrients to reach the roots more easily.

Depending on how dense and compact the soil is, aeration be done with either a simple rake for smaller yards or a core aerator for larger, more intensive projects.

A core aerator gets deeper into the ground than a rake. It has hollow tines that mechanically remove plugs or cores of soil and thatch from a lawn. You may be familiar with this, as it leaves behind little pellets of thatch and dirt on the surface of your lawn .

Your Lawn In The Michigan Winter

When winter finally arrives, your yard is ready to be covered by snow. This is the time when things lie fallow. You wont be having treatments applied during this season.

The good news is, all of the treatments that you or AAA Lawn Care have applied to your lawn throughout the year have ensured that it will be safe and healthy during the winter. To keep your lawn healthy during the cold, snowy weather, follow the best Michigan lawn care schedule from AAA Lawn Care.

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How To Aerate Your Yard

If you’re convinced that your lawn is in need of aeration, here are some lawn care tips on how to do it:

• Before you get started, make sure the soil is moist enough. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to aerate soil that is bone dry. Aerating the day after a rain shower or watering your lawn the day before is advised.

• Most aeration machines cover only a small percentage of soil surface per pass, so make multiple passes over the most compacted areas. Save resources by leaving unaffected areas alone

• The excavated soil plugs should be allowed to dry and then broken up to give your lawn a uniform, clean appearance. Break them up by running them over with a lawn mower or pounding them with the back of a rake.

• An aeration myth is that if you apply a pre-emergent herbicide on your lawn in the spring, aerating your lawn will destroy the herbicide “barrier.” This is not true research shows that aeration will not affect crabgrass control or weed prevention.

• After aerating, it’s important to continue basic lawn care practices such as proper fertilizing, mowing and watering.

Aeration is a beneficial practice toward achieving a beautiful lawn, but most people don’t realize it or understand the process. If your lawn is a candidate, make it an integral part of your lawn care regime. Your lawn will thank you for letting it breathe again.

Does Your Lawn Need Aeration

Most of the Lawn owners mostly ask if their lawn needs aeration or not. Well, you can aerate your lawn if

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Go The Extra Mile For Your Lawn And Schedule Overseeding With Your Core Aeration Service

Core aeration will help your roots grow stronger and deeper, thus resulting in greener, more robust grass. However, to fill in those patchy areas completely, you will need our overseeding service as well. Overseeding directly after aeration will give the new seeds the best chance of germinating and growing the lush lawn that you’ve always dreamed of. We overseed with a premium blend of Kentucky bluegrass, fescue, and ryegrass seeds.

How To Determine Whether Your Lawn Needs Dethatching

Not all thatch is bad for your lawn. A thin thatch layer can be good as it insulates the grass roots, hence improving your lawns wear tolerance.

The thin layer also leads to lower soil temperatures, and the soil under the thatch tends to retain more moisture resulting in an overall, green, healthy lawn.

When thatch begins to accumulate, it begins to harbor disease organisms and insects, making your lawn more susceptible to drought and disease damage.

A thick thatch layer also results in decreased rooting and increased potential for scalping.

To determine whether you should dethatch your lawn, you need to measure the amount of thatch between the soil surface and green vegetation.

To do this, remove a two-inch deep wedge from your lawn. You can use a knife or any other object.

If the amount of thatch is more than one-half inch, your lawn is ready for dethatching.

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How Much Does It Cost To Aerate My Lawn In Michigan

Aerating your lawn in Michigan can cost anywhere from $40 to $100 or more depending on the size of your lawn and the type of aeration service you choose. Core aeration, which removes small plugs of soil from your lawn, is the most common type of aeration and usually costs between $40 and $80. Spike aeration, which involves poking holes in your lawn with metal or plastic spikes, is less common but may be recommended in some cases. It usually costs between $50 and $100.

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Weed Control & Fertilization

Our Lawn Care Program includes up to 7 applications of weed control and lawn fertilization to achieve the beautifully vibrant, green lawn youve always dreamed of!

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Lawn Care Treatment During Fall

After the heat of the summer, temperatures begin to drop a bit. The wind picks up, the leaves start to fall, and all around the state, 20 year old women pull out their cardigans and start drinking pumpkin spice lattes.

Treating your lawn in the fall is important. It needs specific care in order to ready it for the cooler temperatures and the coming winter.

Lawn Seeding & Overseeding

If your lawn contains any bare spots, seeding and overseeding is for you. This program works hand in hand with aeration, though it can be done separately. We highly recommend that you have your lawn aerated prior to overseeding, as it allows the seed to come into greater contact with the soil and prevents it from flowing away if it rains. You also get the added benefit of dethatching the lawn and creating holes so that water can be utilized better.

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How Do I Know If My Lawn Needs To Be Aerated

Almost every lawn can benefit from annual core aeration, but there are some lawns that need it more than others. Yards with clay-heavy soil underneath the grass will likely need core aeration more often than others because clay in the soil gets compacted more easily. If there has been any recent construction on your property such as adding a building, driveway, or pool, it is likely that the grass and soil were compacted by heavy machinery and your lawn could benefit from aeration.

One way to see for yourself if your lawn needs to be aerated is to use a shovel to dig up a small plug of grass. If there is more than a half inch of thatch built up or the roots are less than two inches deep, it will benefit from core aeration.

What Is Lawn Aeration

Lawn aeration, or core aeration, is the lawn care process of pulling up plugs of soil and redistributing them across the lawn. This process is important to maintaining the health and beauty of your lawn for years to come. But, does your lawn need to be aeratedright now? Weve put together a list of telltale signs that your lawn needs a little help.

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