How ready is your lawn for spring?
Once the snow season is over, there are certain tasks you need to take care of to ensure your lawn is as healthy as it can be come growing season. These include raking deeply, assessing the soil, overseeding, fertilizing, and aerating if necessary.
Speaking of lawn aeration, how do you know if your yard needs it? What are the benefits of aerating your lawn? Here, we’ll talk about why you need to aerate your yard and how to do it.
Aerating Your Lawn: The Basics
Lawn aeration is a must if your yard gets heavy traffic. Let’s say you have kids and pets who run around and play a lot in your yard. What this does is make the soil more compact.
The problem is that soil compaction can stress the roots of your grass. That’s because these roots find it more challenging to retain moisture and nutrients. If you don’t want your lawn to thin out or go dormant, aeration is worth considering.
Besides reducing soil compaction, some benefits of lawn aeration include thatch reduction, enhanced seed germination, and improved lawn appearance. Thatch, as you know, is a layer of living and dead stems, leaves, and roots. You don’t want it on your lawn because it promotes an environment that pests love.
As for seed germination and lawn improvement, a well-aerated turf provides seeds with hiding places or holes that allow them to thrive. Aeration will also immediately improve your yard’s appearance because seeds can germinate in as early as seven days.
How To Aerate Your Lawn
Now that you know when to aerate your lawn, let’s talk about how to do it. If you’re interested in DIY, there are three types of aerating equipment you can rent or buy.
The first would be spike aerators. These machines have spikes that poke holes into the soil. Remember that these don’t remove soil and only provide short-term decompaction.
Your next option is a slicing aerator. Unlike spike aerators, these have rotating blades, cutting through thatch and grass and penetrating deep into the soil. What’s fantastic about them is that, while they do not remove soil, they don’t make compaction worse because of the pathways they create for air, water, and nutrients.
Last but not least, are plug aerators. Lawn professionals prefer these because they provide long-term decompaction. The only downside is that you may find it hard to operate one, so an excellent alternative would be to opt for outstanding lawn care services to do the heavy task of aeration.
Don’t Leave Your Lawn Grass-Ping For Air
Aerating your lawn is essential if it gets heavy traffic, resulting in soil compaction.
You can do DIY lawn aeration if you rent or buy an aerator. Hiring Heroes Lawn Care is also an option, since aeration can be tedious.
Don’t forget to browse our site for more tips and advice on keeping your lawn healthy. We also cover other home improvement topics, so feel free to stick around and look for articles that interest you.
