Lawn Aeration

What is Lawn Aeration?

Lawn Aeration is a key aspect for good lawn care and maintenance. To start with, it is important to understand what lawn aeration is and why it is so important for the good health of any lawn.

Lawn aeration involves the removal of tiny soil plugs out of the lawn, or the creation of spiked, tiny holes, with the intention of allowing freer movement of air into the soil. Lawn aeration is most commonly done mechanically with a machine that has hollow tines or spoons mounted on a disk or drum. The way the machine works is that it extracts up to 3/4 inch diameter cores of soil and deposits them on the lawn. There are other types of lawn aerators that just push solid spikes into the soil without removing any plugs. The danger in these types of aerators is that they sometime contribute, rather than help prevent, soil compaction.

Lawn aeration has many benefits that greatly contribute to creating a healthy lawn. The most important one is the fact that it helps fight compaction of the soil. Compaction reduces the pore space within the soil that usually holds air. Air is vital to good lawn care and maintenance. The grass roots require oxygen to grow and absorb nutrients and water. It can also be a physical barrier to root growth.

Proper core aeration will result in numerous benefits for your lawn. It will result in excellent top growth and good lawn health. Aeration also increases the activity of soil micro-organisms that decompose thatch and greatly increases water, oxygen and nutrient movement into the soil. Aeration will also tend to dramatically improve rooting and helps prevent fertilizer and pesticide run-off from overly compacted areas on a lawn.

When can lawn aeration be done? The answer is at any time, as long as the ground is not frozen. It is also advisable not to do any aeration when it is hot and dry as moisture in the soil is very important for good aeration. Actually lawns are supposed to be watered well a day before the scheduled aeration. Very wet lawn conditions are also not suitable for aeration.

Lawn aeration is best done when cores are pulled out and deposited on the lawn. On lawns that are thatchy in nature, it is imperative to leave the cores on the lawn where they will slowly work their way back into the grass. In other situations the core can be removed.

If you are not sure of exactly when your lawn may require aeration, then simply extract a square foot off the lawn and carefully observe the roots. If they extend for only about 2 inches into the soil then it means that your lawn soil may be compacted and can greatly benefit from core aeration.

Other situations that cry out for aeration include where your lawn is heavily used or driven upon on a regular basis. In such cases you will sometimes note that the turf has greatly thinned and the grass generally looks unhealthy. In situations where your lawn soil is heavy clay soil, regular and intensive lawn aeration is often required.

The best time to aerate lawns will depend on the type of grass and the area. However generally speaking, tall fescue and Kentucky blue grass are best aerated in late August to mid September. This is usually the beginning of a rapid growth phase for this type of grass. This ensures that lawns will recover quickly after aeration. Warm season grass types are best aerated during June and July, their period of vigorous growth. Lawns can generally be aerated once a year, especially where there is heavy use.

In a few cases, aeration may not be required. This is in situations where the lawn is not subject to compacting or compacting pressures, like heavy use. Also a newly established and seeded lawn should not be aerated in its’ first year.

Organic Lawn Care - Lawn Care and Lawn Maintenance Tips

What is Organic Lawn Care?

Organic lawn care is quite simple and probably a less costly lawn care and maintenance alternative. In organic lawn care, mowing the lawn is very important. And even more important is how you mow the lawn.

Lawns always seem to have some stiff competition from weeds. This is the reason why in organic lawn care, we mow as high as possible to choke the weeds. Like with all plants, sunlight is very important for good healthy growth. Both the weeds and the grass will fight for enough sunlight. When you mow high, the grass will shade the weeds and help destroy them.

So when mowing, in organic lawn care, set the mower as high as possible (3 to 4 inches).

Most folks think that when the mow grass as low as possible, they will not need to mow often. Actually the very opposite is true. Grass grows much quicker when mowed too low.

Here’s how. The grass plant requires as much leaf surface as possible for photosynthesis which is the conversion of sunshine into sugar to feed the roots. When you cut the grass too low, the grass has to make leaves or blades as quickly as possible to survive. Apart from using up plenty of grass plant’s stored sugar and this greatly weakening the grass plant, it also make the lawn very vulnerable to disease and pests. It also means that the grass will grow a lot faster.

In contrast taller grass will tend to be healthier and will therefore tend to use the extra sugar available to grow more grass and thus make your lawn thicker. It will not grow quicker, it will tend to grow much more slowly than grass that has been mowed very low.

There is another way you can in fact use mowing to fight off weeds. Mowing twice as frequently as you usually do (still mowing high) you will affect the weeds and have no effect on the grass plants in your lawn. Unlike grass, the sensitive growing point for weeds is near the top, so when you keep on cutting off the tops of your weeds, you will tend to kill them, which is exactly what you want.

In organic lawn care it is very important to leave the clippings on your lawn when you mow. The clippings add organic matter and important nutrients to the soil.

Water your lawn only when your grass starts showing signs of lack of water. And when you water, you should ensure that the grass gets at least one inch of water. By watering less frequently you will be forcing the grass roots to go deeper into the soil. Naturally this will tend to be a lot deeper than most weed roots. The idea here is that as the soil dries the weeds with their shorter roots will die first and quickly as the grass roots still have access to water deeper in the soil. Actually weeds do very well when you water a lawn daily.

Usually the way to tell when to water your lawn in organic lawn care is to carefully watch the grass. Usually it will curl before it turns brown. When it starts to curl, that is the best time to water. The way to water your lawn when the grass is on the verge of drying is to do half your watering, wait for about 3 hours and then do the other half inch of your lawn watering.

If your organic cared lawn requires it, you should fertilize it with organic fertilizer in the fall and spring.

Another trick to use in organic lawn care is to have your soil pH tested by an expert. Never trust the cheap Ph testing equipment being widely sold - it could give you the wrong reading and cause you to take the wrong action with often fatal results.

If your soil pH is less than 6.0, add lime to the soil. If it is above 7.0, add gardener’s sulphur. The ideal soil pH for grass is 6.5.