SolveYourProblem
Lawn Care Article Series
Practical
Tips For The Perfect Lawn
Is
Aerating Your Lawn Beneficial?
Caring for a lawn can be complicated. You
spend a lot of time figuring out mowing schedules, fertilizers
to use, and when to edge. You probably worry about insects,
disease, and even your own competence in care. One thing that
you should look at in terms of lawn care that can be a solution
to many of your problems is lawn aeration. Aerating
your lawn is a very beneficial procedure that can end up saving you a
lot of stress down the road.
Lawn
aeration is the process of reducing soil compaction by
essentially punching holes in the soil either with special
shoes, a hand tool, or coring machine. The procedure can be
done by buying or renting spiked shoes that are made for loosening
the soil as you walk around. The other way of doing it is by
renting a mechanical core aerator, which will mechanically
remove plugs of soil and thatch from your yard. Either way,
it is an important procedure to perform in the maintenance
of a healthy and beautiful yard.
Often times, you may even be overlooking the problems that
compacted soil may be causing in your yard and blaming them
on other things. Many homeowners will blame insects, bad watering
processes, disease, or even fungus is often blamed for a yard’s
decline. In reality the real problem may be compacted soil.
Compaction begins when approximately the top four inches of
the soil and thatch become compressed. This compression can
impede air movement, water movement, and nutrient access to
the roots of the plants. The whole thing can be very stressful
on the grass. It can become less able to compete with weeds
and may not recover from injury or shock as quickly.
Aerating
your lawn will take care of a lot of your problems. Aeration will loosen the compacted soil and thatch so that
water and nutrients are more available to the plants. The process
of aerating will also increase oxygen in the soil, which can
stimulate the roots as well as the activities of the thatch-decomposing
creatures that help keep your lawn healthy. Aeration helps
reduce water runoff so that your watering is more efficient.
Overall it will improve your lawn’s health and increase its
tolerance to drought.
So you know that it is important to aerate your lawn, but
when should you do it? You will aerate your lawn either in
the fall or the spring, depending on what kind of grass you
are growing in the lawn. If you have a cool season grass, you
should aerate in the fall, when the danger of heat damage is
low. For a warm season grass, you should aerate in the spring
and summer during active growth times. For either kind, no
matter when you aerate, you should do so on a day with mild
temperatures and moist soil.
Aeration then should happen as often as necessary. The
best way to tell if your lawn needs aeration is through
a screwdriver
test. Take a screwdriver out to your lawn and try to push it
into the soil. If it is hard to push it in, then you probably
need to aerate. If it goes in with just a little bit of resistance,
then you do not need to aerate. You should only perform the
screwdriver test when the soil is mildly moist.
You can also combine the aeration and seeding of your lawn.
Once you have aerated the lawn, allow about a month before
you seed, though. The ground and grass will need time to heal
before introducing seed to the situation. By combining the
aeration and seeding of your lawn, though, you will be able
to create a beautiful and full looking lawn.
With all the chores that are involved with lawn care, it can
be easy to get confused. You may be watering more often than
you need to, spreading more pesticide than you need to, or
changing your fertilizer when it is unnecessary. The real answer
may just be that you need to aerate. By aerating you will loosen
up compacted soil and then solve a lot of the problems you
may have had before. Aerate your lawn as often as needed to
keep it healthy and low-maintenance. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
> Home
> Lawn Care
Articles: Main Page
|
