When And How Often Should You Aerate Your Lawn
Aeration of lawn doesnt have a specific number of times it can be done in a year. Neither does it have a specific date.
There are only two factors that determine when and how often you can aerate your lawns:
- The nature of the soil
- The period.
You can aerate lawns once in a year if the nature of the soil is sandy soil. The aeration will only take place during the springtime.
For clay soil, you can aerate your lawn 2 4 times in a year. This number of times will enable the lawns to receive proper water, air, and nutrients to aid their growth.
You can also aerate your lawns during rainfall if there is no tender grass. Because aerating during spring might damage the tender grass roots.
Aerating during the spring will create enough time for the thatch to decompose overtime.
Especially when the spring is almost coming to an end. This process is mainly done to give the lawns more nutrients.
Another method of aeration is before the temperature reaches 55 degree celsius during the spring period. During this period you will be able to pull enough weed in your lawns.
If youre in the north, you can aerate your lawns during the early fall, while in the south you can aerate during the mid-spring to the early summer.
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.
When To Aerate Your Lawn
As with most larger lawn projects, such as planting grass seed, it’s best to aerate during or right before the time your grasses reach their peak time for natural growth. Aeration is good for lawns, but it can stress grass if timed improperly. Never aerate dormant lawns.
For cool-season grasses common in northern lawns, early fall or early spring are the best times for aerating. For warm-season grasses common to southern lawns, the best time for aerating is late spring or very early summer. When aeration coincides with active growth, grasses recover quickly and fill in areas where aerator equipment exposes soil.
Aerating is easiest on you and your lawn when your soil is moist from irrigation or rainfall the day before. Overly dry soil can be tough to aerate, so moisture eases the process. Never aerate overly wet lawns wait a few days instead.
Slicing aerators slice through lawns and leave soil in place.
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How To Know If Your Soil Is Compacted
As long as you know what to look for, its relatively easy to detect when your soil is compacted. Here are the tell-tale signs:
- Bare spots and areas with patchy, unhealthy looking grass. When water and oxygen cant reach the roots, grass cant grow.
- Rock hard soil that you can barely penetrate with a pitchfork.
- Puddling.
- Water running down from high areas is a sign that your lawn is not absorbing water.
- The Soil has a reddish tint. This is a sign of soil with high clay content, which tends to become compacted.
- Plants with stunted growth and trees with shallow roots.
- If your lawn doubles as a playground for kids or pets, theres a good chance the soil is compacted.
If your grass is thick, green, and healthy, and none of these signs are present, the soil is likely in good shape. If this is the case, stick to an annual aeration schedule until conditions change.
Core Aeration Vs Spike Aeration
There are two main types of aeration, spike aeration, and core aeration. While both methods serve the same purpose, core aeration is the preferred method. Core aeration is also known as plug aeration. Instead of simply impaling the ground, core aeration carves a plug of earth out of your lawn, leaving a cylindrical hole. These particular gaps are optimized to allow the maximum amount of water, sunlight, and nutrients to reach grassroots.
While aeration machine rentals are available, lawn care companies such as Lush Lawn maintain the highest quality equipment for aeration and have the experience to get the job done well and hassle-free.
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Can You Hurt Your Lawn By Aerating
Aerating in the spring could hurt the lawn more than it helps. Aerating could cause the soil to dry out more quickly, since it helps the roots to more easily obtain fertilization, water, and air. aerate as much as you can, but dont over-aerate. If you do, you could end up with lawns that look like theyve been sitting in a bucket of water for a week.
What Is Lawn Aeration
According to Cambridges Dictionary, aeration refers to “a process that allows air to act on something. When it comes to gardening, aeration is the process of poking small, long holes into the ground in order to provide the soil with good air circulation and improve the grassroots water and nutrient consumption.
Air circulation is very important as it lets stale carbon dioxide out, in turn, making room for fresh new oxygen to go in.
Lawn aeration also helps break through piled-up thatch in high maintenance lawns and reduces lawn compaction, which is the main cause of moss.
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How Often Should You Aerate The Soil
Depending on the soil types, aeration can be different too, and the frequency you should do it changes.
For instance, clay soil types will need more aeration. Clay soils are usually easier to get too compact, so it should be aerated at least once per year. On the other hand, sandy lawns need less aeration, so once per year or once every two years should be enough.
If you have wide lawn areas with a large amount of foot traffic, childrens plays, pets, and cars, then compact soil will be the forever problem. Try to aerate the lawn regularly. This way, you can be sure that the ground does not become too compact or too hard for the plants to bread and the grass to spread uniformly.
What To Expect From Trugreen Lawn Aeration
In addition to a healthy, lush lawn, here are four things to expect from your TruGreen lawn aeration service:
1. Your lawn specialist will remove small plugs of turf, thatch and soil from your lawn.
2. For cool season grasses, your lawn could also benefit from overseeding since aeration creates optimal conditions for seed development and growth.
3. In 1-2 weeks, the plugs break down, feeding nutrients back to your lawns roots.
4. You may begin to see new white roots and seedlings growing in the aerated holes.
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When You Should Aerate:
The best time to aerate is during the growing season in early summer or early autumn, when the lawn is growing most actively. These times are best because the grass can easily heal by filling in any open areas after the plugs have been removed. Ideally, you should aerate the lawn with a cool season grass selection in the early spring or fall and warm season grass in the late spring.
Reasons To Aerate Your Lawn
Core aeration is when you use a machine which looks similar to a walk behind mower called an aerator. It is used to go over the lawn and pull small soil cores or plugs. Those cores are then deposited on top of the lawn. These cores begin to decompose over the next week or so depending on rainfall. This breakdown of soil redeposits rich organic matter back into your lawns soil.
While this process seems simple, it adds tons of benefits to your turf.
First of all, its important to understand what lawns need to thrive. Lawn roots require oxygen, water, and nutrients for good growth. As a result of foot traffic and normal, everyday activity, your lawn soil can become compacted, which restricts oxygen, water, and nutrients from getting to roots.
Core aeration breaks up this compacted soil, allowing those three elements to continue nourishing your lawn roots again. Healthy soil is a big part of growing a great lawn. Aeration also assists in deeper turfgrass root establishment.
Overseeding at this time is usually a great idea as well. For ideal seed germination, you need maximum seed to soil contact. When you aerate, you naturally create these pockets which allows for optimum seed to soil contact, boosting your seed germination results. This can help thicken up a thin or bare lawn, crowd out weeds, and create a healthier overall stand of turfgrass.
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Benefits Of Lawn Aeration: Why You Should Core Aerate Your Lawn
Did the summer heat, backyard barbecues and all those times you and the kids ran through the sprinklers do a number on your lawn? Aeration is the perfect way to help restore your lawn after the stresses of summer. Now is the time to act to get the healthy, thick lawn youll be proud of once spring rolls around.
Without aeration, nutrients from the air, water and fertilizer may not reach the soil, which can cause imperfections in your perfectly manicured lawn. If youre not convinced yet, check out the seven benefits below to see how lawn aeration can help your lawn keep up with all your fun in the sun.
Should You Seed After Aerating
Within 48 hours after you aerate you should over seed, fertilize, and water your lawn. If applied at the same time, the seeds, water, andfertilizer will have the best chance of getting into the aerator. If you dont have a lawnmower, you can use a garden hoe to break up the grass. You can also use your hands to push the seeds out of the hole.
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Dethatching Vs Aeration: Whats The Difference
If you have heard of dethatching and aeration, you may wonder if you need to do one or the other or both on your lawn. First off, you should know that aeration and dethatching are closely related, but they are not the same. As previously mentioned, thatch is the layer of yellowed, dead grass that collects just above soil level at the base of living, growing grass blades. Up to a half-inch of thatch is normal and even beneficial, as it protects the grasss roots from temperature extremes. On the other hand, thicker thatch can prevent your turf from being able to absorb much-needed water and important nutrients. If your lawn has a thick layer of thatch, you can see benefits from both aeration and dethatching.
As weve already mentioned, aerating your lawn refers to the process of making small holes in the soil throughout the lawn, while dethatching usually involves raking the grass in order to remove yellowed, dead grass. Both dethatching and aeration are intended to increase the flow of air, water and nutrients to and throughout the soil in order to encourage thick, healthy grass growth.
Both processes are most effective when grass is in its active growth season. Warm-season grasses such as Bermuda, St. Augustine or zoysia should be aerated or dethatched in mid to late spring, while cooler-season grasses such as ryegrass, Kentucky bluegrass or fescue benefit from these techniques in either the early spring or the fall.
What Period Of The Year Do You Need To Dethatch
Dethatching of lawn varies because of the difference in the weather conditions, the conditions of the soil, and the types of grass are what determine when to dethatch.
Personally, I prefer to dethatch my lawns during the springtime.
Because I normally carry out dethatching on my lawns before application of any treatment like fertilizer, lime, watering, and overseeding.
If you overseed or fertilize before dethatching, you will end up removing everything. Because this involves removing excess soil.
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What Is Lawn Aeration To Aerate Means To Expose To Air
Lawn Aeration is the process by which the surface is punctured through the turfgrass into the soil creating small holes. These small perforations, exposing soil and roots. will allow more nutrients to be absorbed through the soil such as air, water and fertilizers.
Lawn Aeration can be performed using a variety of tools or machines. Aerating your lawn is often overlooked by the homeowner gardener, but it is a vital step in maintaining good health and successful results to get your best lawn grass for Florida.
Thatch is a layer of organic material that normally accumulates on lawns at the base of the turfgrass above the soil and roots. When this layer gets too thick or compacted, it can be a barrier that is preventing your grass from getting all the necessary nutrients to grow. Thatch can build up to unhealthy levels based on a number of circumstances. Too much Thatch build up will leave your grass feeling dry yet spongy. You can learn more about Thatch and ways to manage it in this article by Lawn Care Simplified.
Other reasons to aerate your lawn if you have a heavily trafficked yard that can lead to soil compaction, if your lawn was established with sod using layered soil or as if your grass was installed as part of a new home construction using topsoil. Lawn aeration should be preceded by a deep raking of your lawn to remove any dead materials that may have accumulated over the Winter season. The many benefits of Lawn Aeration are:
Benefits Of Aerating Your Lawn
There are several benefits of lawn aeration. Lawns with a thick build up of thatch that is more than an inch deep can suffer from disease and insect problems. This deep layer of old material harbors pests and disease pathogens, such as fungal spores. The thatch also minimizes the amount of nutrients and moisture that the roots need to grow.
The benefits of aerating your lawn also include stimulating root growth by providing a more porous and easy to navigate soil texture. Lawn aerating is not always necessary annually on low thatch varieties of grass, but it cannot really hurt to increase the movement of water to the roots.
Lawn aerating is also important for earthworm activities, as it loosens the soil so they can perform their important composting activities.
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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.
Lawn Maintenance After Aeration
There are a few types of maintenance that are very important to consider doing after aerating your lawn.
These methods of maintenance are fertilization, watering, and mowing properly.
Directly after aeration you can also add more seed while you fertilize your lawn. This is what I recommend, as its the best time to get the seed and fertilizer right down into the soil. Youll get the most bang for your buck.
Aeration opens your lawn up to accepting nutrients. This will create a thicker and healthier lawn in general, along with the aeration, and instead of a chemical or organic fertilizer, I also recommend top-dressing with a thin layer of organic screened compost. This will keep the seed moist, and add valuable nutrients to the soil.
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Aeration: Why How & When To Aerate Your Lawn
In order to achieve and maintain a beautiful lawn, you should employ basic lawn care practices such as properly mowing, fertilizing and watering. It is also important to ensure that nutrients can reach the soil beneath your grass. Aeration can be an extremely vital element to a healthy lawn because it allows air and water to penetrate built-up grass or lawn thatch.
Get rid of thatch and make way for a beautiful lawn with this quick guide to aeration. Youll learn why, how and when to aerate your lawn for the best results.
