Aeration in Bloomingdale & Surrounding Areas
What is Aeration?
For many homeowners, aerating the lawn is an annual maintenance task that relieves compaction, remove excessive thatch, and opens up the soil to gas exchange. When soils become compacted, they limit the flow of essential nutrients that support thicker, healthier turf growth. A soil compaction layer of as little as ¼ to ½ inch thickness can make a significant difference in the healthy, vigor, and beauty of your lawn.
Lawns deprived of oxygen, moisture, and nutrients by compacted soils will start to struggle in stressful situations, such as high heat, low rainfall, or inaccurate irrigation practices. Grasses gradually decline, thin, and eventually die out completely. And will require seeding to maintain a thick healthy turf.
Reasons why your lawn may need aeration:
- The soil is compacted and the turf is thin in areas.
- Water collects during rainfall or irrigation and forms puddles.
- Water retention is low and most of the irrigation or rainfall runs off the lawn.
- There are worn areas in the lawn that will not recover after seeding or fertilizer.
- Your lawn has excessive thatch built up.
- During warm weather your lawn starts to show signs of drought stress and does not recover.
If your grass often looks stressed and your soil is hard to the touch or rainwater puddles up where it used to be absorbed, you may have compaction problems. Confirm your suspicions with a simple “screwdriver test.” Take a regular screwdriver and stick it into your lawn’s soil by hand. It should slide in fairly easily. If you meet resistance, your soil is compacted, and aeration can help.
Core Aeration
Mechanical core aeration is a cultivation method of removing plugs from the lawn in which carbon dioxide can escape from the rootzone. Oxygen, nutrients, and moisture can enter these channels and enhance root development, in turn creating a thicker, greener, healthier lawn. Aeration helps with excessive thatch problems by removing a core of dense thatch and loosening the soils around the area to allow moisture to soak into the soil. This will help your lawn retain moisture and prevent surface runoff.
How is Core Aeration Helpful?
Aeration will temporarily relieve a lawn with problems associated with heavy thatch and compacted soils. The core aeration tine poke holes in the lawn and removes a core to allow air, water and nutrients into the soil profile to reach the plant roots. Core aeration also leaves the plugs on the lawn, which some people might find unattractive but they do serve a purpose. Core can be raked up but they break down soon enough on their own and they act as a nice topdressing, whether you’re planning to seed or not.
Compacted and clay soils can cause unhealthy turf and stay waterlogged when wet and during frost thorn and snow melt. Soil can turn hydrophobic in the summer and restrict the necessary air, water, and nutrients from moving through the soil profile. Turf becomes more susceptible to disease, roots become stunted, and beneficial micro-organisms struggle to enhance nutrient uptake. Turf will become stressed and start to thin as a result of complected soils, this is when you need a liquid soil aerator.
The Benefits of Liquid Aeration
While manual aeration can be a valuable practice for your lawn, there’s no doubt that liquid aeration is the better option. It offers many distinct advantages over manual aeration. Ease of use for the applicator, more frequent applications and less description.
Long Lasting Effects
Liquid aeration is an ideal lawn care treatment for those who want the beauty of their lawn to stand the test of time. Its effects can last for months. The benefits of manual aeration are often short-lived. The thatch layer can redevelop leaving the lawn deprived for water and air. This can have a catastrophic impact on the health of the lawn. It won’t be able to resist the summer heat or drought conditions. It can also become discolored, leaving you with a brownish lawn while the neighbor’s grass is still wonderfully green.
No Cores Left Behind
The cores left behind from core aeration methods are an eyesore. No one likes seeing these on their lawn. They make it difficult to enjoy spending time in the grass and can hamper a home’s general appearance. Liquid aeration doesn’t require digging cores or disturbing the soil. The aeration mixture leaves behind no evidence of your aeration efforts, aside from a healthy lawn.
Much Easier to Apply
Traditional aeration methods take time to apply and can be back-breaking work. It can take hours for lawn care professionals to manually aerate a medium-sized lawn, even with professional-grade equipment. Liquid aeration can be done quickly. In this instance, saving time also saves money. The lawn care technician can apply the liquid aeration with ease, leaving the solution to get to work.
Covers a Wider Surface Area
During manual aeration, the technician may need to make multiple passes over the same area of grass with their aeration machine. This makes the job even more difficult and takes even more time. Liquid aerating a larger lawn is no issue. The technician will easily be able to cover even the largest lawns with the liquid aeration solution.
Reaches Much Deeper
Manual aeration methods can only penetrate about three inches deep into the soil. While this is good enough to see some results, liquid aeration can reach much deeper. Liquid aeration the solution can reach around a foot below the surface. This is especially beneficial, as it ensures that water and nutrients can reach the deepest roots.
