Core aeration is your lawn’s best friend in the fight against soil compaction and thatch accumulation. This process involves extracting 4”– 5”plugs or cores of soil from your lawn, perforating the soil into the root zone. These plugs of soil rest on the surface where soil organisms can break down the underlying thatch, naturally. Over time, this rotation of underlying soil brought to the surface is literally composting the soil your lawn grows from. The resulting organic material enriches your soil and provides valuable nutrients that your grass can use for healthy growth. With the soil more porous, organics hold water reserves longer during drought, reducing the severity of damage and required recovery thereafter. Changing the analogy of “one step forward, two steps back” to a one -to-one, balanced equation. Where you get out exactly what you put in.

The Right Timing for Core Aeration

Most lawns can benefit from annual core aeration. If you have a heavily used lawn and/or your grass is growing in clay subsoils, you might want to consider aeration twice a year. For most lawns, we recommend aeration every fall season, targeting compacted soil made worse by summer heat. This allows for faster recovery after drought in the fall season. We prefer not to aerate in the spring season as it causes complications with wet soil, complications with ongoing mowing practices and to pin it down, the exposed soil has potential to germinate dormant seeds, often causing weeds that require additional chemical inputs. Its always best to leave the soil covered up and protected in the first half of the season. Often overlooked, soils in the early spring are naturally loose due to the freeze and thaw cycles of our winter season. Compaction is exacerbated by spring rain/irrigation, mowing and other activities.