Core Aeration: Getting to the Root of Lawn Problems

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Carol A. Crotta

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It may feel as though you’re killing your lawn with kindness to aerate it, but appearances are deceiving. Aeration cuts holes through matted roots into subsurface soil to allow water and nutrients to penetrate, replenishing and loosening compacted soil.

If you want a great lawn, core aeration is just a part of a regular maintenance routine – especially if you’ve got heavy clay soils. This revitalizing process also goes hand in hand with dethatching a lawn. That’s because core aeration is a great way to break up compacted or poorly draining soil to increase the amount of air – and most importantly oxygen – that reaches the roots of your turfgrass. Not only do your grass roots need oxygen to thrive, the microbial life and earthworms so necessary to maintaining a healthy lawn need it, too.

How does your soil get compacted? By regular use and heavy rains. These things squeeze soil particles together and push the air out. When this happens, water fails to penetrate, drainage is slowed and fertilizers merely wash off. The lawn’s roots grow increasingly shallow, and the lawn weakens and ultimately dies.

Fortunately, diagnosing a soil compaction problem is as easy as diagnosing thatch. Just take a look at your lawn. Do you find that water stands in pools after a rain? If so, grab a screwdriver and take a walk around your lawn. Start with areas that get a lot of traffic or are spindly and sparse, and push the screwdriver into the ground. If the tool penetrates fairly easily down to the handle, all’s well. But if you feel the need to run for the hammer to pound your screwdriver into the ground, you’ve got a compaction problem – and you need to aerate your soil.

Some gardeners aerate their lawns once a year, and that’s not a bad idea. Fall is the preferable time to do it, but spring is a good second choice. As with dethatching, proper aeration requires renting a special machine called a “core aerator. If you’ve got a small lawn, consider buying a hand-operated core aerator, which basically looks like a gnarled garden fork. You press it down into the ground with your foot, extract it, and tap out the plugs. It takes more time and energy, but it’s essential for areas where a power aerator won’t fit.

Tips

If you decide you’d rather have someone else do the lawn work for you, determine what services you need (mowing, maintaining, aerating, seeding, landscaping, fertilizing and pest control applications) before you call a professional. If you have concerns about certain applications, like spraying, be sure to raise them before you sign a contract.
Let all of those unsightly plugs of grass and soil pulled up during the aeration process stay right where they are. They’ll break down in just a couple of weeks and return much-needed nitrogen to the soil.

Tools

A hand-operated core aerator for aerating small yards has a stirrup-like surface on which you put your foot and step down before pulling back up with the handle. The prongs capture cores of soil, which come up as the handle is raised, aerating the lawn.

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