If you’ve never heard about lawn aeration, it’s about time you did. Improvements in lawn aerators have caused them to be an incredibly useful tool in lawn health, and lawn care service providers recommend their use in order to make your lawn look better than ever. Let’s take a look at why lawn aeration has become an indispensable tool in lawn care.

Why Is Lawn Aeration Needed?

The soil in your lawn gets compacted for many reasons. Foot traffic and the pressure from lawn mowers can compress the soil particles together, as can the weight of snow. Even gravity itself is causing top layers to weigh on lower layers. When you put all of these together, your soil gets more and more solid, much like a marshmallow that’s put in a vice; it loses air and becomes harder to tear apart. And while a marshmallow can regain some of it’s shape, soil isn’t so elastic.

What Does It Improve?

Hard, compacted soil does not support life as well as soil with more air. Earthworms have a harder time moving through it, and might avoid it altogether if the soil is too hard. It also prevents beneficial soil microbes and nematodes from thriving. Once aeration occurs and the soil is literally allowed to breath, all of these workers will return to help break down thatch and improve the general quality of your lawn. When this happens, your grass roots can move through the soil more easily, allowing them to search deeper for water and reduce your water usage.

How Does It Work?

There are two types of aerators, spike aerators and core aerators. Spike aerators poke holes in the soil but remove no soil; the next time the lawn is watered, the soil expands and the holes close up. While this provides some benefits, it doesn’t do nearly as much as core aeration.

With core aeration, the machine has hollow spikes that plunge into the lawn and remove plugs of soil, which are then deposited back on top of the lawn. The holes in the ground stay open long enough for fertilizers and air to reach the roots, and allow water to go deeper because the holes stay open through multiple waterings. This is considerably more beneficial because it allows the soil around it to expand over time, not just when water is applied. The plugs on the surface break down and once again become part of the topsoil.

What’s Needed?

A core aerator and someone who knows what they’re doing! The professionals at WeedPro Lawn Services know how to operate the lawn aerators, yes, but it’s also important to be able to “read” a lawn. Special care must be taken in order to avoid tree roots that are exposed or near the surface. Also, since the aerators are self-propelled, it important to know how to drive one so that decks and driveways don’t get damaged!

Does Every Lawn Need It?

Here in the South, a lot of our soil is very heavy with clay. You won’t be surprised to hear that clay compacts very easily and can prevent beneficial organisms from making it as good as it can be. The best way to find out if you’re in need of lawn aeration services is to give a professional lawn care company a call.

Lawn aeration is an excellent yet often overlooked way of improving the overall health of a lawn. The healthier a lawn is at to begin with, the less fertilizer will be needed to make it look its best. Are you ready to improve the health of your yard with lawn aeration services? Give us a call today!