You may have heard the term “lawn aeration,” perhaps from a lawn care expert who mentioned it while assessing your lawn needs. Or maybe you noticed the ground was really hard and you “Googled” the term, only to find that lawn aeration usually solves that problem. That's all well and good, but just what is a lawn aeration service, and how can it help your lawn? Your lawn is like Just like your body, your lawn needs a way to “breathe” in oxygen, to open up and receive nutrients and adequate hydration. Aeration is one of the best ways to make your lawn thicker and improve the effectiveness of normal irrigation and fertilization. Lawn aeration is designed to remove small plugs of turf, thatch and soil from your lawn. These plugs break down and feed nutrients back to your lawn's root system.
Using a machine called a lawn aerator creates “pores” in the ground, between one-half and three-quarters inches in diameter, loosening the hardened earth and allowing nutrients and fertilizer to move around. The cores that are pulled out of the ground with the lawn aerator are placed on the soil surface, to be broken up by irrigation, mowing or rainfall.
How can lawn aeration help your lawn?
Lawn aeration services, at the correct time of year, provide numerous benefits:
•Improves Turf Health. Core lawn aeration provides the root zone with greater access to air, water, and fertilizer. This access to air, water, and nutrients, improves the overall health of the turf. Also, turf grass roots will be deeper and more extensive.
•Aids Thatch Management. Core lawn aeration helps in thatch management by punching holes in the thatch layer, and by introducing thatch-decomposing microorganisms from the soil to the top of the thatch layer.
•Relieves Soil Compaction. Removing cores relieves compaction and decreases soil density.
•Benefits pH Modification. Applying lime or sulphur after lawn aeration promotes the change of pH deeper into the soil profile. This will let nutrients penetrate deeper in the root zone to become available to the turf.
•Benefits Overseeding Operations. It is helpful to core aerate before and after seeding into an existing lawn. Soil cultivation enhances seed-to-soil contact necessary for germination, and creates a moist, protected environment optimal for seedling growth and development.
Lawn aeration is a service that should be done frequently—for a healthy lawn you should have it done twice a year it is, however, a process best left to experts. John’s Landscaping® offers lawn aeration service as well as many other lawn care services and plans. Call (440)954-3320 today to learn more about lawn aeration services.
Aeration, a method of punching holes into the lawn to allow moisture, oxygen, and nutrients to penetrate the soil, also helps break up thatch. Its primary goal is to loosen compacted soil; it's often needed for lawns grown in clay soils and those subject to heavy foot traffic. You can do the job more than once a year, if necessary. If you aerate once annually, do it in fall for cool-season grasses, in spring for warm-season sorts.
You can aerate soil with a hand tool - you press the cutting end into the soil with your foot, then lift it out along with a 2-inch, cylindrical plug of sod. Hand aeration is certainly good aerobic exercise, but it can be time consuming if you have a large lawn. For good-sized areas, a gas-powered aerator does the job faster; you can rent one from supply centers offering garden-machine rentals. (You may also see spike-soled sandals sold as aerating tools; when you walk back and forth over the lawn wearing this footgear, the spikes will supposedly penetrate the soil. Unfortunately, the spikes are both too short and too thin to do an efficient job. Save your money.)
Once the lawn has been aerated, clear away the plugs, spread a layer of organic matter such as compost or soil conditioner over the lawn, and water it in. The organic matter seeps into the holes left by the plugs, improving the soil's texture.
