My lawn service is pushing core aeration. Does every lawn need that, or is it just to solve specific problems?
If you have tightly packed soil, particularly a high-clay type, punching out plugs from it will loosen it enormously, let water and nutrients into the root area, and give the rhizomes room to go crazy.
It can also be oversold and should not have to be done more than once every 3- 4 years, and almost never on sandier soils.
If you can walk out to a random spot in your lawn and dig your finger in full length without too much effort (some, yes), you don’t need it. If you have trouble working a garden trowel in a few inches, you do. Anything in between is a judgment call.
It’ll never hurt. Even sandy soils can benefit as it’ll mix some organic material into the soil. And it will break apart the mat of dead grass that can build up.
Mom always has it done; she’s got very clay-y soil. Can’t say as I truly notice a difference, except that for two weeks it looks like a flock of geese with OCD used her yard as a bathroom. But she’s happy with the results, and she’s much savvier abut plants than I am.
Agree with most of what has been said. I am i North Carolina, with a VERY clay-ey soil. I aerate every year, and notice the difference.
I used to live in the midwest, where my lawn lay on top of a rich loam that 20 years before had been farmland. I don’t think aerating every year would have hurt anything, but I didn’t find it necessary to do it all that often.
There’s no downside to it except to your wallet. I’d agree that even perfect soil could use some punching every few years, to cut up the rhizome mat and spur new growth. If you aren’t spending the kids’ college money on it, get some comparative bids and go ahead with it.
Or do it yourself. Some home centers rent the machines. It’s pretty common in my neighborhood for neighbors to chip in and do a bunch of lawns all at once.
It is good for your lawn. Farmers turn the soil before they plant crops – think of core aeration as turning your soil but without digging up the entire area and having to plant a new crop of grass.
While you can do things like aerating and seeding any time of the year, right around Labor Day is the best time for it in this part of the country, so it sounds like your lawn service people know what they are doing. It can be very difficult to rent an aerating machine at this time of the year.
I have been in the green industry for over 40 years. Just about everything a lawn service company sells you is BS, traditional, organic, whatever. Do not ever ever put pesticides or fungicides on your property. Just ride with the damage and rake an inch of compost rich soil over the area the next spring. Don’t waste money aerating, save that money up to add compost rich soil or to correct problems with too much or too little slope. Fertilize a couple or three times. I live on worn out blackland clay in Texas, use no treatments organic or chemical, water once every two weeks, and have a fine stand of hybrid bermuda in the front, and St. Aug in the back (water it ever week to ten days). All this lawn care crap is against the law of nature.
*Lawns *are against the laws of nature, at least in my area of the world. Prairies, sure…lawns, not so much.