|
 Many
homeowners aerate their lawns in early spring or the
fall before it is time to seed and before the ground
freezes. Aeration means ‘to ventilate’ or ‘to
provide air’ and there are two ways to do this to
ones lawn: one way is by ‘coring’ or pulling out
‘plugs’ of soil and grass and the other way is
through ‘spike’ aeration or slicing deep ‘cuts’ into
the lawn to break up the packed down soil. Both of
these methods of aeration allows the soil and roots
to receive water and air they desperately need in
order to grow straighter and healthier blades of
grass.
Some examples of where aeration is
needed is when the lawn does not drain properly –
the soil will not soak up the water quickly; there
are large brown, dry patches where the grass does
not grow, it is a well traveled ‘foot-path’ or there
are excessive weeds such as crabgrass and dandelions
growing in a patch.
Homeowners with larger
lawns, or those who simply want better results, have
a professional lawn care company come to their home
and use the ‘core’ method of aeration on their lawn.
By extracting cores of soil from a lawn, an
individual is breaking up the knotted roots and
thatched soil in order to allow water and air to
penetrate deeper into the soil and reach the roots
so that the grass grows straighter and greener,
healthier.
A “woody” organic material
develops on the top of the soil and under the
growing grass and this is known as thatch. If
allowed to continue to grow, thatch could lead to
insect infestation, drought or lawn diseases; it
could literally suffocate a lawn so that it won’t
grow. Core aeration helps to reduce thatch buildup
by removing some of its increasing production of the
organic material.
The core aeration method
breaks up the knotted roots by cutting out sections
or ‘chunks’ of the roots, soil and grass so that
what is left can grow back together and receive more
of the air and water it needed to survive and thrive
as a healthy lawn.
The ‘spike’ method or
when someone simply pushes a knife into the soil to
make slits, does not allow for the proper amount of
water and air to reach the roots in addition to
allowing for re-growth of newly formed roots. This
method, which could be done with a small garden tool
or pitch fork to push air into the soil and break up
the packed dirt, would be okay to use on a small
area needing aeration, however for bigger lawns, the
core method of digging up ‘plugs’ is best for the
lawns recovery and healthy maintenance.
After
core aeration is completed, it may be tempting to
pick up all the ‘plugs’ but it is best to leave them
lying on the lawn because the soil plugs provide
needed nutrients for the growing grass and they will
eventually dissipate and become part of the lawn
again.
|
Call Lawn Aerators 