Oakville Lawn Care Providers Recommend Core Aeration for Healthy Lawn

The city of Oakville is a community on the banks of Lake Ontario however not everyone in the city has a lakefront property. Billed as the most liveable town in Canada , Oakville is home to a diverse group of people from all walks of life who like to celebrate music, art, architecture and the great outdoors.

Many of Oakville ’s landscapes, buildings and properties are designated part of the Town of Oakville Heritage Registry and as of June 2009, there were just over 600 properties on the registry. Oakville residents take pride in their buildings, landscapes and lawns. The most lovable town in Canada means not only the indoors for comfort, but looking good on the outside as well.

In order to maintain well-kept neighbourhoods and a healthy looking lawn in front of the many different styles of houses, homeowners rely on cold weather lawn care system which includes core aeration for a greener, stronger, improved lawn.

Core aeration is taking a specifically outfitted coring machine and ‘puncturing’ or ‘thumping’ a three inch deep and three quarters of an inch in diameter round peg shaped openings in the ground so that the roots of the grass will gain the valuable nutrients from fertilizers, air and water. The normal percentage of holes to an area covered is approximately 10 per square foot. The ‘cores’ left behind by the core aeration machine will need to be left on the ground – even though it may make a homeowner’s lawn look a little different for a week or so – because these grass and dirt ‘plugs’ will crumble, returning to the earth and help to continue breaking up the thick thatch which is the layer of built-up roots, grass and other ‘woody’ materials between the grass and the soil that prevent the grass from growing properly.

There are numerous arguments for an Oakville resident to have their lawn aerated, in particular to control thatch which helps to decrease summer draught damage, reduce soil compaction, improve the outcome of insect controlling applications and reduce weeds and the need for more pollutants from insect and weed controllers.

The result of too much thatch, soil compaction is a key problem for proper root growth which is the basis of any healthy looking lawn.  Core aeration will help to break up the compacted soil, permitting the necessary nutrients to reach the root system of the grass.

Grass eating bugs, in addition to diseased organisms live in an assortment of thatch forms. Pathogenic fungi could also grow and spread in thick thatch, and for that reason breaking up thatch with core aeration is a helpful way to rid a lawn of these difficult lawn invaders without chemical dependency.

Annually aerating the lawn will help to reduce and break up the thatch and the ‘plugs,’ that are about the size of a finger, are left on the grass to breakdown which helps put more nutrients back into the growing grass.