Anyone who has a home and a yard will have noticed that it requires sometimes significant maintenance to keep that lawn looking green and thriving. More than just watering and fertilizing can be required from time to time. Aerating a lawn helps to ensure that it is healthy and beautiful for years to come. This article covers the step by step directions for aerating your lawn.
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Means of Aerating
Typically, aerating is accomplished by one of two means. It can be done with a manual, or foot pressed, Aerator. It can also be effectively done using a Power Aerator, which is also known as a Coring Machine. A Power Aerator generally looks much like a typical motorized snow blower. It has wheels on the sides or back, along with an engine resting on the top. The biggest difference between the Power Aerator and the Manual Aerator lies in a circular wheel at the back or the front of the machine, which has either spikes or hollow cylinders sticking out surrounding the wheel. In contrast, the manual Aerator typical possesses four cylinders which are hollow at the bottom, along with a foot plate located on the top. This is utilized to press into the soil, as a shovel would do.
Preparation Work
Obtaining an Aerator to use is not hard. You will not be required to go out and purchase one. They are simply rented from a number of rental service yards.
Before you get started, be certain that you locate and mark any power lines, cables, and such which are buried shallowly, as well as any sprinkler heads sticking slightly up. These can be marked using smaller yard flags, along with any comparably easy to spot markers. The goal is to prevent yourself from running over and killing these things while you are performing the aeration.
Aerating Techniques
For those of you who aerated your yards earlier in the year, or who have yards containing soil which is only lightly compacted or is sandy, you should only aerate with but a single pass. This should be done in a pattern which is much like the one in which you mow your yard. For readers with clay soil, a highly compacted surface, or who have not aerated your lawn in the past year, you should plan on making two good passes. The second pass ought to be at an alternating angle to the first pass.
Raking Up or Raking In the Plugs
As you perform your aeration of the yard, you will begin to notice plugs which have been removed and are lying on the ground. Do not be disturbed when they appear unattractive. You are able to simply rake them up afterward and dispose of them, or you could alternatively rake them back down into the yard itself. If you choose to rake them back down into the yard, then they will generally break up and re-dissolve down inside the ground, particularly once you water the lawn. For those of you who are thinking to put down sand atop the surface or to reseed the lawn following your aeration technique, then it is actually a smart idea to leave the plugs on the surface, where they will dissolve and aid in offering more cover for the ground.
Fertilizing or Re-seeding Your Yard
Once you have accomplished your lawn aeration, do not forget that this is an optimal point to either re-seed your lawn, or at least to fertilize it. The aeration created numerous holes throughout your yard and took out the thatch. In so doing, it generated fantastic soil exposure, particularly to the roots of the grass themselves. Should you opt for the re-seeding, then make sure to finish this by raking the seeds well into the soil, fertilizing afterward, then adding a basic sand or other matter covering.
