Aeration is a lawn treatment that can have drastic effects on promoting and maintaining a healthy lawn. The aeration process uses special equipment that punctures small holes into the yard throughout the entire lawn. This may sound strange to plunge holes into your grass, but these holes left behind end up providing major benefits for your lawn and helping it grow stronger and healthier. Here’s how:
Reduces Soil Compaction
Compact soil makes it tough for grassroots to grow and expand. When you walk on your lawn and water your lawn, it naturally compacts the soil together leaving fewer air pockets and increases resistance for your grassroots to grow and build up. The aeration process pulls out small plugs of soil which allows the soil to decompress, giving lots of extra room for air to access the soil and for the dirt to expand out.
Reduces Thatch Build Up
Thatch is the natural layer of dead grass clippings, leaves, and other debris that gets buried beneath the healthy growing grass. Thatch build-up robs your grass from sunlight, nutrients, and water as it acts as a barrier to the soil. Aerating your lawn helps pull up some of the thatch build-up, enabling for a healthier and stronger lawn.
Reduces Water Runoff and Puddling
Once you aerate, your soil becomes less compressed. This benefits your lawn by allowing water to be absorbed easier into the top layer of soil through to the deeper layers. Since there are more air pockets and the soil is not as compact, more water is able to reach deeper into the grass root system. This also means you’ll end up with less puddling which can be harmful to a healthy lawn. The result is that you’ll get more out of your watering efforts and end up with a stronger yard.
Enhances Fertilization
Aerating leaves behind small holes throughout your lawn for a period of time. This is the perfect time to feed your grass, as the fertilization is going to be able to get absorbed by the soil a lot more effectively. Fertilization will find its way directly into the soil from the plugs that are left on top and the holes that it finds throughout. This allows the fertilizer to be absorbed and utilized better by your grass.
Stronger Root System Growth
As stated before, the decompression of the soil is going to support healthy root system growth. Since the soil will be less compressed and more air pockets exist, it provides the space your grassroots need to expand and access additional air, water, and nutrients that it had trouble accessing before. The result is going to be that your lawn will be able to build up a stronger root system and support a healthier lawn.
Improved Air Exchange
Since the soil will be decompressed, you’ll have better air exchange between the dirt and the atmosphere. This helps circulate oxygen and carbon dioxide as well as naturally occurring nutrients your grass needs. Giving your grass room to breath will allow it to become stronger and more resilient. The soil will become more fertile allowing your grass to continue to establish a strong root system and naturally feed your lawn.
Aerating your lawn is recommended once per year to encourage soil and lawn health. Staying on top of this will have long term benefits for establishing and maintaining a strong and healthy yard.
Our lawn care experts are here to help you with your lawn aeration to make sure you get the most out of your aeration treatment. You can get full-service lawn care from our experienced lawn care experts year-round with our monthly Lawn Maintenance Plan. This includes an annual aeration treatment to promote strong soil and root heath and ensure you’re lawn stays healthy year-round.
