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Aeration allows air, water and nutrients to penetrate the soil. When nutrients penetrate deeper into the root zone, they become available to the turf. This improves the effectiveness of your TruGreen fertilization and ongoing watering to promote a healthy turf.
When Should I aerate my lawn?
You want to aerate the lawn when your grass is in its peak growing period so it can recover quickly—think early spring or fall for cool-season grasses, and late spring through early summer for warm-season grasses. If you have high-traffic areas or heavy clay soil, you will want to aerate every year.
Do you really need to aerate your lawn?
No, it’s not necessary to aerate your lawn every year, especially if your grass is healthy and thriving. Aeration is good if you’ve got compacted, poor or clay-heavy soil that’s been impacted by heavy equipment or lots of foot traffic. It’s also good to aerate if you are renovating a yard or installing a new one.
What do you do after you aerate your lawn?
What to Do After Aerating Your Lawn Leave the soil plugs on the lawn to decompose and filter back into the holes left by the aeration machine. Apply fertilizer immediately after aerating your lawn to put nutrients into your grass roots. Reseed your lawn, especially in areas of the lawn where the grass is thin.
What are the benefits of aerating a lawn?
Core aeration can help make your lawn healthier and reduce its maintenance requirements through these means: Improved air exchange between the soil and atmosphere. Enhanced soil water uptake. Improved fertilizer uptake and use. Reduced water runoff and puddling. Stronger turfgrass roots. Reduced soil compaction.
Can you aerate too much?
Loose soil doesn’t need to be aerated very often. Especially thick types of grass may also call for aerating more frequently. As a general rule, you shouldn’t need to aerate more than once a year at any time (“too much of a good thing” applies here, since you don’t want to damage your soil).
Can you mow lawn after aeration?
In general, aeration creates the most benefit on soil that is a little bit moist. Then, try not to mow right after aerating. Instead, mow beforehand, and consider laying seed and fertilizer over your lawn after aeration and give your lawn time for that new seed to germinate before you mow again.
Should you seed after aerating?
Within 48 hours after you aerate you should over seed, fertilize, and water your lawn. The seed, fertilizer, and water will have the best chance to get down into the holes made by the aerator if applied soon after aeration. If the fertilizer contains weed control, your grass seed won’t germinate properly.
Is it OK to aerate a wet lawn?
You can aerate a lawn when it is wet provided that it is not excessively wet. Lawn aeration involves making small holes on a lawn’s surface at regular intervals and moist soil helps the process. However, depending on the soil type, excessive moisture can hamper the process.
Should I mow lawn before aerating?
Before you aerate, mow your lawn low (Timberline lawn experts recommend setting your mower to about 1.5-2 inches above the ground to maximize the effectiveness of aerating, being sure to not scalp the crown of the grass.) This is because the soils must be moist when you aerate to help the machine penetrate the soil.
Does aerating lawn get rid of weeds?
Aerating your lawn allows vital nutrients, water, sunlight and oxygen to sink in and reach the root system of your lawn. This will promote a healthy and deep root system, giving you a lush green lawn that is better equipped to defend against the intrusion of unwanted weeds and grasses.
Will aerating lawn help grass grow?
Why Aerating Helps Lawns Grass roots need air, water and nutrients to grow thick, deep and strong. 1 Aeration creates holes down into the soil to alleviate compaction so air, water and nutrients can reach grass roots.
Should I aerate or dethatch first?
Excess thatch blocks out air, light and water from reaching root zones. Dethatching and aeration services go hand in hand. Dethatch first, then aerate.
Should I pick up plugs after aerating?
Those aeration plugs are vital to the health of your lawn. Resist the urge to “clean” the lawn after it’s been aerated, and whatever you do, don’t remove the plugs.
Can you just throw down grass seed?
The simple answer is, yes. Beyond just throwing the seed out into the lawn and not performing any grass maintenance there is a whole world of lawn care. Basically the grass will not grow if no grass maintenance has been completing prior to planting and it is just thrown on the ground.
Do you mulch or bag after aeration?
A common misconception people generally believe is that they should mulch-mow the core aeration plugs to break them down quickly, but this is not recommended. The reason behind this is, if you mow these soil plugs with your mower, the soil may drop again on the aeration holes in the yard and fill them in.
Do I overseed or fertilize first?
Stop fertilizing for at least a month before overseeding. The fertilizer makes your grass grow faster, which makes it harder for the new seeds to take hold. Identify your grass type or the type of grass you want to grow, so you can manage it appropriately.
