How to Aerate Your Lawn: A Lawn Lover’s Guide to Great Grass

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Learning how to aerate your lawn is a must for homeowners who want to keep their yard looking lush. So if your greenery is looking a little thin or (yikes) has a bald patch here and there, you’ve come to the right place!

Welcome to our Lawn Lover’s Guide—a series of articles that will help guide you through all the maintenance tasks you’ll need to know for a gorgeous yard and maximum curb appeal this summer. First up? How to aerate your lawn—an oft overlooked chore that can easily revive your grass, no reseeding or fertilizer required.

Why is aerating important?

Between hot sun, harsh weather, and weekly mowings, thatch (dead grass, roots, and other organic material) can build up on the ground. This can prevent oxygen, water, and the other nutrients your grass needs from reaching the roots, says Brad Leahy, owner of Blades of Green in Harwood, MD.

“Aeration is the process of punching through those layers of thatch and compaction in your lawn,” Leahy explains.

“Aeration allows essential air, water, and nutrients to reach down to the roots, which helps your lawn grow and thrive,” explains Keven Shanks, manager of retail training at Scotts Miracle-Gro. “In turn, microorganisms thrive and break down the thatch.”

When to aerate your lawn

The best time to aerate a lawn varies by type of grass and the part of the country you live in, Leahy says.

If you have grass geared to flourish in warm areas such as Bermudagrass or centipedegrass, your best aeration time would be spring, Leahy says, since “warm season grasses begin their period of active growth in summer.”

Meanwhile, cool season grass such as bluegrass or fescue is best aerated in the fall, since this is when these plants are busy expanding their roots in preparation for winter.

However, some experts say that aeration is beneficial whether done in the spring or fall, regardless of the type of grass you have, so it’s best to just keep an eye on your lawn and do it as needed.

How to aerate your lawn

To start on your quest how to aerate your lawn, you’ll need to pick up an aerating machine. These devices have hollow metal tines that will pull up plugs of soil, stripping away some of that thatch and allowing grass roots to get fed. Aerators cost anywhere from $129 to more than $300, but you can also rent one from many home improvement stores.

On the day before aerating, Shanks suggests applying 1 inch of water to the lawn to soften the soil. Then make sure to mark any sprinkler heads or shallow irrigation, septic, or utility lines so that you won’t accidentally run them over.

Choose a day when you’ll have a few hours of free time during the early evening for aerating. In the early morning, your grass will likely be covered with dew, which will make it more likely for your healthy grass to be ripped up, and midday can be hot, hot, hot.

Begin walking across your lawn, pushing your aerating machine the way you would a lawn mower. The tool will do most of the work for you.

“For lightly compacted soil, go over your entire lawn once with the aerator, making sure to follow directions for use,” Shanks suggests. “If your soil is seriously compacted or if you’ve never aerated it before, go over the entire lawn twice, with the second pass perpendicular to the first.”

The aerator will remove plugs of soil, but you don’t want to bag them up for the compost bin like grass clippings after you mow. Instead, soil plugs should be left on the lawn so they can break down and add nutrients back into the soil.

Once you’ve finished aerating, water the lawn well. You can apply a lawn food such as Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food to provide the nutrients needed to help the lawn recover, and water your newly aerated lawn every two to three days during the next couple of weeks.

How often to aerate a lawn

You will want to aerate every year if you have high-traffic areas or heavy clay soil, Shanks says. If you have sandy soil or your lawn is growing well, you can aerate every two to three years.

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