Simple, regular maintenance tasks can go a long way in creating a thicker, healthier lawn. Jobs typically reserved for once a year can also play a significant role in supporting those smaller steps taken across the months. For many Pennsylvania homeowners, aerating lawns to relieve soil compaction and enhance grass growth is a regular annual task. Almost any lawn can benefit from aeration when it’s timed well and done properly. So, when should you aerate your grass? Read on and find out.
What is aeration?
Grass roots need air, water and nutrients to grow thick, deep and strong. When soil becomes compacted, even slightly, it inhibits the flow of the essentials that support thicker, healthier turf growth. Aeration involves perforating the soil with small holes to allow air, water, and nutrients to penetrate the grass roots. This helps the roots grow deeply and produce a stronger, more vigorous lawn.
Why aerate?
Lawn grasses struggle in stressful situations, such as heat and low rainfall, and lose their healthy, rich color when deprived of their basic needs by compacted soil. Aeration can be a vital element of ensuring a rich, dense, and green lawn by penetrating thatch and allowing nutrients to reach the root system. Aeration with overseeding is an operation that removes soil cores from your lawn. The benefits of aeration are substantial; it improves air exchange in the soil, enhances fertilizer and water uptake, reduces soil compaction, helps grass plants produce a healthier root system and reduces thatch build-up.
When should you aerate?
Aeration, as a rule, should be done usually every other season, generally in fall. The weather is the main factor. Aeration is invasive to grass plants and the fall weather in Pennsylvania is optimum to help the plants to recover.
When this service is done, it is also an opportune time to overseed your lawn. The grass seeds will make their way into the aeration holes and germinate, producing a thick healthy lawn.
If you have any questions, the Good’s lawn care team of licensed technicians offer professional services to residential and commercial properties to help keep your lawn healthy, green and weed-free throughout the season. We can suggest a lawn care program to help with fertilization, weed and grub control, and aeration that meets your expectations.
