When To Aerate Lawn Oklahoma

Signs That Your Lawn Needs Aeration

There are several signs that may indicate your lawn needs aeration.

• It begins to turn brown after just a few days of hot weather
• Water puddles on the surface after rain
• The grass isnt growing or is growing slowly
• There are lots of bald or worn spots
• The grass is noticeably thinning
• There is a heavy buildup of thatch

If you are still unsure if your lawn needs aeration after seeing some of these signs, there are two tests you can perform. Try sticking a shovel into the soil. If it is difficult to penetrate, it is too heavily compacted. You can also dig into a section of your lawn and inspect the roots. If they dont extend at least 2 inches, your soil likely needs aeration.

When Is The Best Time To Aerate Lawns

• Warm season turf grass such as Zoysia grass and Bermuda grass should be aerated in mid-spring to summer after the grass comes out of dormancy. Avoid aerating when warm season grasses are dormant it may encourage weed competition. In addition, avoid aerating warm season grasses during spring green up, and not until after their first spring mowing.

• If you have cool season turfgrass such as fescue and perennial ryegrass, both spring and fall are ideal times to aerate. Fall is the ideal time to aerate when overseeding.

How Compaction Affects Soil Breathability

Over time, the soil gets compacted due to watering and foot traffic. This significantly impacts root growth and reduces the level of water penetration in the ground. If this isnt addressed on time, the lawn will slowly get thinner and the drainage of water will get affected too. The best way to prevent compaction is to get your lawn aerated on a regular basis. This helps prevent compaction and keeps the lawns healthy and looking good.

Also Check: Cost To Hydroseed 1 4 Acre

When To Aerate The Lawn

You might have noticed that all lawn care practices follow a fixed schedule. You add fertilizer to the soil before spring or winterize it before winter. Similarly, you need to aerate your lawn at a specific time as well. If you perform this procedure at the wrong time, you will damage the grass and that will lead to ugly brown patches in your lawn. Heres how you determine when you should aerate the lawn:

• Warm-Season Grass Warm-season grass experiences active growth during the summer months. You can aerate your lawn during late spring or early summer as the upcoming growth period will quickly fill the holes created by the process. If you follow this schedule, there will be no damage to the grass and the lawn. The new growth will be strong and your lawn will look healthy and green during the summer. Examples of warm-season grass are Bahia, Bermuda, Buffalo, Centipede, St. Augustine, and Zoysia grass.
• Cool-Season Grass Cool-season grass thrives during thecooler temperatures of fall. This variety of grass takes advantage of the slow weed growth during this season. You should aerate lawns with this type of grass four weeks before the frost sets in. This allows the new grass to grow and thrive before the winter. You should aerate lawns with Creeping bentgrass, Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rough bluegrass, and Ryegrass during fall.

How Does Core Aeration Work

A core aerator machine pulls out plugs of soil in your lawn to leave pockets for air and water to get through and leave room for root growth. It is important to use core aeration methods because using spikes to just poke holes in the ground could cause further compaction. The plugs of soil that were taken out by the aerator will break down and give more nutrients to your lawn. The cost of aerating your lawn depends on the size of your lawn. If you want to DIY or hire a lawn care company, there are other treatments you want to do with aeration.

Also Check: Hydroseed Over Existing Lawn

How Long After Rain Should You Aerate

It is also important to mention that aerating soil is best done when the soil is moist but not saturated. Attempting to aerate dry soil makes for a much more difficult task and can also aggravate the problem of soil compacting.

Ideally, one would want to aerate a lawn in the morning 24 hours after it received rainfall or watered. This makes penetrating the soil with solid spike aerators, as well as with hollow-core aerators, much easier. It also prevents moisture from the grass and roots from evaporating too quickly.

Attempting to aerate a lawn during an actual rainfall is ill-advised. First, you can never be certain how long the rain will last and if it will intensify while you are working. This means that you can end up working on water-saturated soil hampering the process. Second, water-saturated soil is easier to be compacted as you walk on it. This makes the problem that you are trying to solve with aeration worse.

Lawn Care : When To Aerate Your Lawn

Spring time! Flowers are growing – green time! It is almost officially spring according to the calendar, hopefully the warmer weather follows. When the weather breaks, it is time for some yard work to make our lawns beautiful for the year. You may be looking at your lawn knowing it needs to be aerated, but you keep putting the treatments off because it seems too hard. Aeration is a simple way to give your yard a healthy lawn. You just have take the time to get it done. You can do it yourself by renting the equipment or you can pick up the phone and hire a professional lawn care company to do all of the hard work. Lets make this the year to aerate. Make your lawn happy and healthy again by relieving compaction. Core aeration is a great way to keep your lawn green and lush, so lets talk about when to aerate your lawn this year.

Recommended Reading: Killing White Clover In Lawn

Best Times To Aerate Your Lawn

The ideal time to aerate your lawn is during weather periods that will support its recovery. The optimal times for this to happen are during growing seasons, and this is dependent upon the type of grass. Cool-season grass tends to thrive during the cooler temperatures of the spring and fall, whereas warm-season grass usually thrives during the early summer months.

Lawn aeration is best performed at these times because weather during these periods helps to control lawn thatch. It is not necessary to aerate every year if your lawn is healthy and growing well or if you have sandy soil because it does not compact easily. In these cases, aerating every 2-3 years will suffice. When this process is performed more than necessary, it can damage your grass and the subtle balance between growth and dormancy. On the other hand, it is best to aerate every year if you have a heavy traffic lawn or clay soil, which is wet, sticky, and compacts easily. Additionally, lawn aeration is recommended twice a year if you live in harsh climates and/or experience particularly cold, dry winters.

When Is The Best Time To Aerate And Overseed Lawn

Soil cultivation and lawn topdressing are beneficial. Firstly, these processes promote new grass growth. Secondly, they improve soil structure and drainage. Likewise, natural, organic fertilizers like compost or animal manure are beneficial: as they help retaining moisture in your lawn. Similarly, aeration lets air and water penetrate to the grass roots it helps the lawn to absorb water and nutrients.

Create an optimal, moist environment before the overseeding operation. This way, your seedlings grow thicker and develop faster. When should I aerate my lawn in the south? Quite naturally, it depends on your region and climate.

National Geographic Society divides the USA into 5 distinctive regions. Michigan is in the Midwest. Geographers call this region Americas breadbasket. Farmers produce cereal crops here. Fertile soil and moist, mild to hot summers are beneficial. So, corn, barley and wheat grow good here.

As well as in the Northeast, we grow cool-season grasses on our lawns. Overseeding is preferable in the fall. Is it OK to aerate in the spring? If you live in the South region, springtime is suitable. The soil has to be warm enough. But the seedlings need to have enough time to develop before summer heatwaves.

You May Like: Can I Hydroseed My Own Lawn

Why You Should Aerate

Aeration is the antidote to the heavily compacted soil, which may be present on a lawn that gets very heavy foot traffic, or which is planted on a soil base that is heavy in clay content. It rarely is necessary where soils are on the sandy side. Core aeration is sometimes advertised as a solution to problems with thatch however, it does not do much to relieve that problem if thatch is already present. Where thatch is a genuine problem, a true dethatching operation is a better solution. However, dethatching is a fairly violent action to a lawn, and an annual core aeration may well prevent thatch problems in the first place.

If you have the type of soil and conditions that require lawn aeration, you can do it once each year. It does not hurt your lawn, and in fact, will make it healthier and more attractive. Some people dislike the look of the small plugs of soil and turf that are pulled up and scattered over the lawn, and if so, you can rake them up. Left on the lawn, though, they will quickly break up and decompose.

People Are Also Reading

Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS Feed | Omny Studio

Tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass are cool-season grasses that grow best in spring and fall. They stop growing but remain green all winter. These grasses do not tolerate summers heat and must be irrigated.

Fertilize warm-season lawns from green-up in April to the first of September. Apply 2 to 5 pounds of actual nitrogen fertilizer per 1,000 square feet, in divided doses, during this time. Zoysia lawns need about half as much and buffalo grass about a third the amount of the Bermuda recommendation. If warm-season grasses are fertilized after early September, dormancy may be delayed causing them to be susceptible to winter kill and diseases.

Tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass are often found growing together and benefit from each others strengths. Cool-season grasses should be fertilized during their active growing periods. Apply 1 pound of nitrogen fertilizer per 1,000 square feet in March or May and again in September and November. The fall applications are the most important. Never fertilize fescue in summer it will make the grass susceptible to heat damage and disease.

Fertilizers also come as immediately released and slow released versions. With the slow release types one can apply double the amount half as often than what is recommended.

Check out the Master Gardener website, tulsamastergardeners.org, for more information.

Garden tips

Read Also: Best All Wheel Drive Lawn Mower

Our Knowledgeable Staff Is Trained And Experienced They Will Always Make Sure To Protect Your Home And Property At All Costs While Working Around Your Yard They Are Diligent To Check Around Them While Working With Machines

Our Services

GET A FAST QUOTE TODAY!

BRANDED & CLEAN VEHICLES

Our vehicles are always cleaned and well maintained to ensure minimal breakdowns and to be there on time without any vehicle issues. We have our vehicle inspected and maintained quarterly. Our vehicles are clean and organized.

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

If you are unhappy with any service we provide,we will give you your money back. You will not be hassled by our staff if you want to get a refund.

DEPENDABLE SERVICE

We will NOT ghost you at the time of service or decide just not to show up at the time of appointment. The day you are scheduled, we will do our best to ensure your project is completed on time.

PROFESSIONAL & UNIFORMED STAFF

All of our staff gets uniforms so you can clearly identify that we are doing the work for you. Theyve been trained to handle problems that may arise, and deal with any issues you may have. We are here to make sure youve had the best experience anywhere.

The Purpose Of Lawn Aeration

In lawn aeration, you perforate your lawn with many small holes, breaking up heavily compacted soil so water, nutrients and oxygen can better reach the roots. This improves grasss drought tolerance, so it can handle harsh weather better. It also improves drainage and encourages faster, better growth. The roots will grow deeper, letting them reach nutrients and water further down in the soil.

Also Check: How To Treat Lawn Rust

Lawn Aeration With Sup

Were always looking for services and products that help bring our customers healthier, greener yards, thats why we use a natural, liquid aeration called Sup-R-Soil that we apply in the late spring. Sup-R-Soil is a liquid aeration product unlike any other soil amendment on the market! We recommend Sup-R-Soil because it gives complete coverage.

What is Liquid Aeration?

Liquid aeration is a lawn treatment that reaches deeper soil and loosens it better than other lawn aeration tools can. While mechanical aeration has its benefits, it only covers about 35 percent of your lawn. Sup-R-Soil, on the other hand, covers 100 percent of your lawn and provides other benefits that mechanical aeration does not. This environmentally-friendly product loosens and aerates compacted soil and is completely natural and biodegradable.

How Sup-R-Soil Impacts Your Yard

Sup-R-Soil is a natural polymer with both a negative and a positive charge. If youve ever played with magnets, you know that aiming the positive end of one at the positive end of the other will push the magnets apart, because opposites attract. The principle behind Sup-R-Soil is somewhat the samethe positive and negative forces work together to push it through your soil and aerate it. Sup-R-Soil:

• Improves nutrient retention, maximizing the benefits of fertilizer
• Eliminates the need for aeration with a machine
• Maximizes the benefits of rainfall or your watering, even during drought
• Reduces thatch, soil erosion, and soil compaction

When To Aerate Warm

Aeration is the process of breaking up the soil and thatch on a lawn, allowing water and nutrients to better reach the roots of your grass. This process can help grass grow faster and will improve its overall health. For warm-season grasses, including Bermuda, Buffalo, and Zoysia varieties, the best time to aerate is during the spring and summer months. This corresponds with the most active growing season for these grasses.

Related Topic: Residential Turf Enhancement Services

Also Check: Trugreen Plans And Pricing

Can I Aerate My Own Lawn

A: Of course! Beware: there are plenty of methodologies and products touted as aeration but are in fact simple spike aeration and thus actually increase soil compaction. The spike-bottom shoes and methods you will find on Google describing how to shove a pitchfork in the ground many times are not effective tools.

To properly aerate you should rent or purchase a core-aerator. It is quite labor-intensive to do it the right way, but with the proper machinery, you can achieve good results!

How Aeration Is Achieved

Proper core aeration of your lawn is performed with a heavy machine. The machine has a number of tines with sharpened edges that are repeatedly forced down into the soil of your lawn.

The tines grab the soil that they cut and eject these plugs onto the surface of the lawn.

The plugs can be removed or left on the lawn. Typically, they are left on the lawn to decompose which saves tremendously on labor.

When these voids are created in the soil, it gives space for the compacted soil to spread out and get some space. This can cause an incredible flush of root development and your lawn will LOVE it.

You May Like: How To Price A Lawn Mowing Job

When Is The Best Time To Aerate Lawn In Northeast

You want your green lawn to be beautiful and perfect. In summer, it should be especially lush and thick. So, any lawn requires regular care, such as watering, mowing, fertilizing and aeration. Lets think about the best time to aerate lawn in Northeast. Does it depend on your climate or the season only? Get several simple lawn maintenance tips. Realizing that aeration is important and necessary is half the battle. I hope, this article helps you to select the best window in your region. Lawn aeration method also matters.

Lawn Seeding To Complement Aeration

Grass can survive for a few years, but fresh growth is still important to the overall look and feel of your lawn. Without fresh growth, large sections of your grass can die off all at once, leaving bare patches. Seeding encourages fresh growth of healthy grass, keeping your lawn thicker and healthier from year to year.

Benefits of overseeding your lawn include the following:

• Helps fight insects and disease by growing stronger roots to stand against them.
• Thickens the density of lawns to give them a softer feel.
• Fills in areas of grass damaged by insects, disease, stress, and winter damage.
• Improves the overall appearance of the lawn.

Don’t Miss: Trugreen Trushield

How To Tell If Your Lawn Needs Aeration

Do you see standing puddles of water after it rains? Does it seem like your lawn isnt growing well? Both of these are signs of compaction. Theres also a quick, easy method North Oklahoma City area homeowners can use to test for compaction and the need for lawn aeration. Simply take a shovel or screwdriver and try sticking it into the soil. If you have to work hard to get it in, your soil is likely compacted. Likewise, if you park vehicles on your lawn, or your yard gets a lot of foot traffic, then both can lead to soil compaction. Also, if you have clay soil, which is prone to compaction, you may need to aerate more regularly.