If you have a cool weather variety of grass, such as Kentucky bluegrass, fescue, or perennial ryegrass, aeration can be done between March and May or in the fall. By waiting until the fall, you can add a late-season fertilizer, which will help your lawn green faster in the spring and ensure stronger root growth. For warmer season grasses, such as Bermuda grass, aeration is best done between April and July.
In most cases, you only need to aerate once per year. However, if you have heavy, clay-based soil, or a lot of traffic on your lawn, you may need to aerate in the spring and the fall to keep your lawn healthy. Also, if you have seeded or sodded your lawn within the last year, do not aerate; wait at least two years to ensure the roots have taken hold.
To determine whether your lawn needs to be aerated, dig up a small section of your grass, and examine the roots. If there are less than two inches of root growth, your lawn could benefit from being aerated. If you know that you have clay-based soil, aeration is a necessity for a healthy lawn. Follow these steps to properly aerate your lawn. Aerating your lawn begins by preparing the area. Ideally, you should water the lawn at least a day or two before aeration; you should add at least one inch of water to the soil to make it easier for the aerator to penetrate the soil and pull out the cores.
Do not try to aerate a muddy or especially wet area though, as that will just clog the machine. Using a core aerator, move across the lawn in the same pattern that you would to mow the grass, taking care to cover the entire lawn. It is important not to remove the soil cores from the top of the grass.
The core holes aeration produces allow water, oxygen and all the other essential nutrients to get directly to the roots. The cores of soil are generally left on the surface of the soil, and as they break down, they play the role of a kind of top dressing. This slows down the buildup of thatch, which is the layer of dead plant material that gradually builds up between the growing grass and soil in most lawns.
If thatch builds up to more than an inch new grass roots may not be able to penetrate the soil and the grass will lose condition. It will also become more susceptible to disease and pest infestation. Aerating in spring is a good way to start the growing season. Aeration in summer is great for heat-stressed lawns. And aeration in the fall is a good way to prepare lawns for the winter months ahead. When aeration of soil is done correctly, hollow tines or prongs of a special fork or aerating machine are pushed into the soil to a depth of about two or three inches.
Then when the tines are taken out of the soil they remove cores of soil the size of the hollow tines. If you use an ordinary garden fork you can spike the soil, but because an ordinary fork cannot remove cores of soil, it does not aerate the soil. There are various types of aerating machines; the sort you would use for your garden lawn will produce between 8 and 16 holes per square foot.
Even the best kept lawns deteriorate over time. But reseeding or over-seeding the lawn can work wonders and prevent the need of a complete renovation of the lawn. The ideal time for reseeding is the same as for seeding a new lawn — early fall. But when you core aerate your lawn mow beforehand and then, give it a week or more before you mow again. This is because your grass will recover more quickly and be able to fill in the parts of the lawn where the aerator has exposed soil.
If you have a cool-season grass which you likely do if you live in a northern area , the best time of year to do your aeration is usually early fall or spring.
If you live somewhere more southern and have a warm-season grass, the general rule is that you should aerate in the late spring or early summer. I've learned to love caring for my lawn naturally and enjoying it daily. On this blog I'll share some of my best tips and tutorials to help you make your lawn the best on the block! Your email address will not be published.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content. You May Also Enjoy:. Other Types. What is the Best Lawn Fertilizer Ratio? Guide to Using Grass Clippings as Compost. Previous post. Next post. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.
Feel like we missed something? Get in touch with us! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Automated page speed optimizations for fast site performance. What is aeration? The types of aeration There are two common types of aeration — plug aeration and spike aeration.
Dethatching vs. The advantages of aeration The advantages of aeration should be pretty clear at this point — doing it leads to a healthier, lusher lawn! Mowing and aeration The need to mow your lawn when you aerate it is actually only loosely tied to the aeration itself. Mowing and overseeding Finally, we can get to the meat of the matter — the connection between aeration and mowing passes right through the connection between mowing and overseeding.
The cores are best left undisturbed The cores the plug aerator removes will slowly break down when exposed to the elements, adding nutrients back into your lawn.
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