How Long Does It Take To Aerate A Lawn

Simple, regular maintenance tasks go a long mode in creating a thicker, healthier lawn. But jobs typically reserved for one time a twelvemonth can play a meaning function in supporting smaller steps taken beyond the months. For many homeowners, aerating lawns to salve soil compaction and raise grass growth is a regular annual task. Almost any lawn tin benefit from aeration when it's timed well and done properly.

Why Aerating Helps Lawns

Grass roots need air, h2o and nutrients to grow thick, deep and strong. When soil becomes compacted, even slightly, it inhibit the period of the essentials that back up thicker, healthier turf growth. A layer of compacted soil simply 1/4 to 1/2 inches thick can make a significant divergence in the wellness and dazzler of your lawn.1 Aeration creates holes down into the soil to alleviate compaction so air, water and nutrients can reach grass roots.

Deprived of their basic needs by compacted soil, lawn grasses struggle in stressful situations, such as heat and depression rainfall, and lose their healthy, rich color. Grasses gradually sparse and eventually die out completely, for lack of the oxygen, water and nutrients available only inches away. Even a unmarried aeration session can open up the avenue for these essentials to reach their mark and put your lawn dorsum on an upward tendency.

Cadre aerators pull small plugs of soil to the surface.

When Lawns Need Aeration

It may not seem your lawn could get compacted, merely it happens easier than y'all may think. Vehicles or small equipment driven on lawns are more obvious offenders, but even outdoor entertaining or yard play by kids and pets tin can go out all or part of your lawn compacted. If you live where heavy clay soil is the norm, annual aeration is probably needed to go on your lawn from becoming thin and weak.

Dethatching and aerating are two different tasks, but they often go hand in hand. Thatch is the layer of decomposing organic matter that forms right at the lawn surface, between soil and grass. When thatch gets more one/two inch thick, it works like compaction to foreclose the flow of air, water and nutrients grasses need. Aggressive spreading grasses, such every bit Kentucky bluegrass in northern lawns and Bermudagrass down due south, form more than thatch than many other grass types. Aeration helps penetrate and reduce thatch buildup or prep it for removal through dethatching.

If your grass frequently looks stressed and your soil is hard to the touch or rainwater puddles up where information technology used to be absorbed, you may accept compaction issues. Confirm your suspicions with a simple "screwdriver test." Accept a regular screwdriver and stick it into your lawn's soil past hand. It should slide in fairly easily. If yous run into resistance, your soil is compacted, and aeration can help.

When to Aerate Your Lawn

As with most larger backyard projects, such as planting grass seed, information technology's best to aerate during or correct earlier the time your grasses reach their peak fourth dimension for natural growth. Aeration is skilful for lawns, but it can stress grass if timed improperly. Never aerate dormant lawns.

For cool-season grasses common in northern lawns, early on fall or early on leap are the best times for aerating. For warm-season grasses common to southern lawns, the best time for aerating is late spring or very early summer. When aeration coincides with active growth, grasses recover quickly and fill in areas where aerator equipment exposes soil.

Aerating is easiest on you lot (or your equipment operator) and your backyard when your soil is moist from irrigation or rainfall the mean solar day before. Overly dry soil tin can be tough to aerate, then wet eases the procedure. Never aerate overly wet lawns; wait a few days instead.

Slicing aerators slice through lawns and leave soil in identify.

How to Aerate Your Backyard

Aerating equipment comes in iii chief types, from small manual versions to larger tractor-similar or pull-behind machinery:

Spike aerators simply poke a hole down into the soil with a solid, spike-similar tine. Some homeowners wear spiked aerator "sandals" strapped to their shoes to aerate equally they practise yard piece of work. While these can assist on a minor calibration, spike machines can make compaction worse by pressing soil together around the holes.¹
Slicing aerators take rotating blades that cut or piece through grass and thatch and down into soil. Like spike aerators, slicing aerators leave soil in the footing, but they create pathways for air, h2o and nutrients without causing more compaction.
Cadre or plug aerators, typically preferred past backyard professionals, utilise rows of hollow tines that remove plugs of soil from your backyard and deposit them on top, where they intermission down. The size of the plugs and the holes they create vary in width and depth, depending on the motorcar used.

Yous can hire a lawn service to aerate for you or exercise it yourself like a pro. Equipment rental companies and lawn and garden stores often rent aerator machines and provide basic operating instructions for the model you choose. Aerating is a lot like mowing as you lot work back and forth across your lawn. Concentrate on whatsoever known trouble areas, like pet runs or backyard baseball diamonds. Make several passes in different directions to help ensure optimal coverage and benefits.

What to Practice After Aeration

After you lot finish aerating your lawn, let soil plugs or extra soil dry where they autumn. They'll break downward in rain or crumble the next time y'all mow, adding benign soil and organic affair to your lawn surface.

Right afterwards aeration is a perfect time to overseed with premium Pennington Smart Seed and fertilize your lawn or practice unproblematic lawn repairs. Seeds and nutrients accept direct contact with soil through the openings your aerator created and roots have fresh pathways for the things they need. The combination tin can assistance put your lawn on the fast rail for quick seed establishment and thicker, lusher growth.

Past adding aeration to your almanac chore list or doing regular compaction tests to check for demand, you assist ensure your lawn can reach its full potential for thickness, wellness and beauty. Pennington is committed to providing you with the finest in grass seed and lawn intendance products to help yous achieve your lawn goals.

Pennington and Smart Seed are trademarks of Pennington Seed, Inc.

Sources