All about Lawn Aeration!
What is lawn aeration? When you aerate lawn, you are making holes in the surface of your lawn in order to increase oxygen and moisture penetration and reduce soil compaction. Lawn aeration
benefits my lawn by enabling air, water, and nutrients direct access to the root
system. This promotes deeper root growth by
allowing water to go deeper into the soil. Lawn Aeration holes hold water in them
which can soften hard soil and give clay soils more room for expansion.
How does aerating a lawn work?
Their are many benefits of core aeration Core Aeration keeps your lawn greener, reducing the cost of watering by:
1) Improving drainage & reduce runoff
2) Reducing soil compaction
3) Controlling thatch development
4) Reducing drought damage
5) Allowing water, air, and nutrients
direct access to the root system.
How often and how to Aerate lawn?
Most experts recommend you should aerate lawns every 1-3 years. If you have hills, pets or active outdoor children you may even need it twice a year. The best time to fertilize and overseed is just after you aerate your lawn. For new lawns, turf aeration is very important. Most developers scrape off the topsoil when they build a new home and it can take years before that soil can be naturally healthy again. The best way to make it healthy quickly is with a lawn core aerator. Also, in many areas new lawns tend to be installed on top of hard clay. A core lawn aerator can speed up the process of soil integration by encouraging roots and grass growth. If you have bad soil, you should aerate at least once a year for the first five years you own a home. It is very effective to also fertilize and over seed right after aerating. After a lawn is established most experts still recommend that you aerate once every three years.
What a well aerated lawn should look like -->
The best time to areate your lawn is usually in April or in late September. For Spring Aeration the optimal window is March to the end of June. In the Fall it is September to October.The 'perfect time' to aerate a lawn may change according to location. If the ground is to soft, it may not be a good time. If the ground is too hard it may need to be watered for about an hour before hand to obtain the best results. Lawn that are aerated on a regular basis may produced better plugs. Lawn aeration can be done using a lawn aerator machine rental, aerator shoes, liquid aeration, tow behind aerator, or a hand aerator.
Lawn care tips:
Now that I have aerated my lawn, what's next?
Iron, Fertilizer and Over seeding are highly recommended.
Many fertilizer brands tell you how often to fertilize. (About 3-5 time per year). Most programs when followed tend to work very well. The very best time to fertilize is in the Spring and in the fall or when the grass is actively growing. The three main elements in fertilizer are Nitrogen (N), Potassium (K) and Phosphorous, These are comparable to Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen in humans. The three main elements are represented by the three numbers on the bag of fertilizer you buy in the store. Knowing this allows you to determine how strong the fertilizer is that you are using. Straight Urea has the numbers 46-0-0. This means it is very large in Nitrogen content, but lacks the 2 other essential nutrients. A good concentration for lawn fertilizer has 25-30 Nitrogen, 8-12 potassium and 6-10 phosphorous. (Weed and feed may not have any phosphorous because phosphorous strengthens weeds.)
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