How to Aerate Your Lawn
Aerating your lawn is a yearly task that needs to be done to keep your lawn grass healthy and happy. Having a healthy lawn will ensure that it will hold up against surprises their environment throws at them, such as punishing winters or very hot summers. Aerating your lawn also helps your lawn absorb water, nutrients and air better. It also helps prevent thatches. A few days’ work makes a big difference. Here’s how to aerate your lawn.
Aerate your lawn when the ground is deeply wet, not muddy. This can only be achieved by a whole day’s worth of rain or deeply watering your lawn.
The type of lawn you have determines the right time and season to aerate it. A lawn made up of cool-season grasses should be aerated in the autumn season, which has less heat stress. If your lawn is made up of warm-season grasses, do your aeration on spring or summer, when they are actively growing.
lawn aerator
Schedule your aeration where your lawn can have four weeks of recovery time. This means that aerating your lawn at the tail end of autumn is a big no-no.
Test your soil before aerating. While the general consensus is an annual aeration, some lawns need more. To test your lawn, use a screwdriver to insert in the soil. If the screwdriver goes in relatively easy, then your soil is fine and has no need of aeration. If the screwdriver has a hard time pushing in, then your lawn may be in need of aeration.
Other specific lawn factors such as soil type, moisture levels, tine diameter and aerator power and weight are needed to be determined before aerating your lawn. If you are unsure with any of these factors, it’s best to consult with a landscaper to help you determine the specifications for your lawn and soil type. Once these have been determined, you can then use an aerator.
You can aerate your lawn in two ways: Manually or with an aerator. Those with relatively small lawns are recommended to aerate their lawns manually by using a spading fork to insert the holes in the soil. However, don’t expect this method to be terribly effective as it may even cause the soil to contact some more.
Use a lawn aerator according to the steps recommended by your local landscaper, or hire someone to do it for you.
Leave the soil plugs on your lawn. The soil plugs are the pieces of soil that the aerator will pull out. Eventually they will disintegrate and reintegrate themselves back into your lawn soil without any problems.