A home lawn is one of the essential elements that give you overwhelming beauty and life. Therefore keeping it in a tip-top condition is necessary. Aerating and watering the yard are some of the top tricks to keep your lawn lively. This article will discuss aeration – what it is and how to aerate lawn step-by-step. Let’s get started.
What is Aeration?
The general meaning of aeration is mixing air with substances or liquid to improve that substance’s quality. Regarding lawn, aeration refers to the process of loosening or creating pores (vents) that allow easy penetration of air, water, and nutrients to the roots of the grass in your lawn.
The principle of lawn aeration is to ensure a sufficient supply of necessary ingredients that support healthy grass. There are various methods of lawn aeration. Let’s look at the standard methods.
The Three Methods Of Lawn Aeration
Core Aeration
This is the most popular lawn aeration method.
Core aeration refers to removing plugs of soil, creating holes of a specific diameter in your lawn. The method uses hollow tines, usually 2-3 inches long.
The method aims to reduce the compaction of dirt in the lawn, as it breaks, removes, and redistributes soil on the lawn’s surface. The resulting holes enhance a loose state of the ground, therefore facilitating air supply to the grassroots.
Spike Aeration
As the name suggests, spike aeration use spikes to create holes in the lawn. It does not involve the removal and redistribution of soil. Spike aeration is suitable for less compacted yards.
Liquid Aeration
Liquid aeration does not involve digging out plugs or creating holes in your lawn. The method uses organic products that increase water penetration and decomposition of the thatch layer from your yard.
This article will guide you on how to aerate lawns using the commonly used method – core aeration. But before diving into the guide, let’s look at the benefits of lawn aeration.
Benefits of Aerating Lawn
Lawn aeration comes with lots of other benefits. Here is a list of notable advantages of lawn aeration.
- Aeration reduces the soil compaction, which facilitates the growth of weeds in your lawn.
- It facilitates water and nutrients uptake, therefore, enhancing the healthy development of your grass.
- Aeration reduces water runoff.
- It enhances the decomposition of thatch.
- It promotes grass resiliency.
These, among others, are the benefits of aeration to the lawn. Let’s now get to our step-by-step guide to aerating lawns.
How to Aerate Lawn – 5 Essential Steps
Step 1: Determine When and the Need for Aeration
This is the first step to adequate aeration. To accomplish this stage, you need to put some factors into consideration. These factors include;
The Need to Aerate – Why aerate lawn?
Various factors may result in the need to aerate your lawn. These factors include the need to;
- Control weeds in your lawn – aeration helps relieve puddling and soil compaction that promote weeds’ growth.
- Promote the growth of grass in your lawn.
- Alleviate compaction.
- Dethatch your lawn.
When to Aerate lawns?
Aeration is highly recommendable when you want to overseed your lawn and planing to apply fertilizers to your lawn’s grass.
Best Time to Aerate Lawn
It is advisable to aerate your lawn right before or during the grass’s peak-time for growth. Note that different types of grasses grow actively during a particular season of the year.
Grasses such as buffalo, Bermuda, centipede, St. Augustine grass, among other warm-season grass, thrive during the summer season.
On the other hand, grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and fescue grass have their peak time during the fall season.
The Type of the Grass in Your Lawn
Knowing the type of grass in your lawn will enable you to determine the suitable method of aeration and the approach you will use. Also, you will choose the best time to aerate your lawn.
How Often to Aerate Lawn
These are the intervals you should aerate your lawn. Noting the often to aerate your yard will help you avoid damaging your property by overdoing it. Lawns with heavy-clay can be aerated utmost two times per year, while less compacted lawns should be aerated once. Also, consider the often activities on your property. Grounds that experience heavy traffic requires regular aeration.
Keeping the above five aspects in mind, you will determine if it is the best time to aerate your lawn. Suppose it is the ideal time, head on to the next step.
Step 2: Prepare for Aeration
Lawn aeration is a process that requires thorough preparations. You have to have the right pieces of equipment – machinery and other apparatus necessary for aeration. Regarding equipment, you will need to evaluate your lawn.
- What are often activities on the lawn?
- When last did you the lawn?
- Is it littered with debris, sticks, and other hard indecomposable material?
- You will also need to evaluate the level of compaction.
Evaluating will help you determine the necessary aerators and other apparatus such as rake and mower. Note that there are two types of aerators – manual and power aerators.
Power aerators are more efficient, especially for highly compacted lawns. You will also know the method you are going to use. Note that core aeration is not recommendable for recently overseed lawn – use spike instead.
Step 3: Prepare Your Lawn
Lawn preparation is the other essential thing to do. How you prepare your lawn before aerating will affect the effectiveness of the aeration significantly. While preparing the yard, you need to do the following;
- Mark the irrigators system – Identify and mark sprinkler heads’ locations to avoid damaging them while aerating.
- Rake the lawn – Raking the lawn helps collect and removing debris, sticks, and other objects that can obstruct the aerator.
- Mow the lawn – Mowing is not mandatory. However, it is recommendable if the grass is too tall to give your aerator easy access to the ground. Here, the basic idea is to shorten the grass. Ensure not to over-cut the grass.
- Water the lawn – Watering the ground is essential. It softens the soil. However, it will depend on the method of aeration you are going to use. Core aeration works best in a dry lawn.
After preparing, you are now ready to start aerating your lawn.
Step 4: Aerate the Lawn
Aerating is a straightforward process. All you need to do is start your aerator and move it from one side of your lawn to the other. You do not need to maintain a straight line while aerating. Ensure to aerate your entire yard.
Be sure not to overdo it. However, you may double-aerate areas with more soil compaction or densely thatched. After aeration, leave the plugs on the surface. They will decompose with time and benefit the grass.
Step 5: Fertilize Your Lawn
After aeration, it now the time to care for your lawn by fertilizing it. Applying fertilizers will facilitate the grass recovery from aeration and mowing. Ensure to spread fertilizers to the entire yard.
Final Words
Lawns are the best places to spend time with family and friends. Aerating them is one of the crucial methods to beautify them. Therefore, learning how to aerate lawns is an excellent DIY trick. Always use this guide while aerating your yard to do it most effectively.
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