After mowing, watering, trimming, raking and mulching, you think you’ve met your lawn care needs, but then that pesky aeration word pops up and bursts your daydream thought bubble. Do you really need to aerate? If you want one of the lushest, greenest lawns in San Antonio, you do. Fortunately, you only need to aerate your lawn twice each year, so you don’t have to fret about it regularly.
With San Antonio’s dry climate, we recommend aerating during early spring, around March 15, and again in fall, around October 15. If your lawn receives abundant traffic, however, you might consider aerating up to five times each year. Spring aeration prepares your yard for new grass growth, and fall aeration helps your lawn recover from an activity-filled summer. Additionally, Texas A&M Agrilife Extension recognizes the holes left in the lawn behind the aeration machine as perfect little feeding tubes for water, fertilizer, compost and the like.
If you’re wondering why you should include aeration in your lawn care routine, you can stop. The simple answer is oxygen. Like all land-dwelling life forms, grass requires oxygen to grow to its full potential. We fully believe that San Antonio rocks, but we have to admit that the city’s compact clay soil isn’t conducive to sumptuous grass. Grass deprived of oxygen can’t grow; in a manner of speaking, it suffocates and dies. Through core aeration, oxygen can reach the suffocated roots of grass, and the breath of fresh air rejuvenates and refreshes your lawn. Yes, you could say that aeration provides your best means of avoiding lawnicide.
For best results, you should follow a small handful of tips before and after aeration.
Before You Aerate:
• Eliminate weeds, since aeration will spread the little grass chokers.
• Feed your lawn an inch of water. Depending on your soil, watering may take as little as one hour the day before aerating, or it could take 15 minutes a day for five days before aerating. Moist, not saturated, soil best accommodates aerating machines.
After You Aerate:
• Weed, feed or compost your lawn; the little holes create the perfect delivery service for lawn nutrients.
• Reduce lawn traffic as much as possible for 24 hours.
• If you find the plugs unsightly, rake them into your grass; otherwise, let them sit. They will degrade enough that your next pass with a lawn mower will chomp them into beneficial, nutritious compost.
Growing a beautiful lawn in San Antonio does require a small amount of coaxing, but you’ll have a great head start by incorporating aeration into your lawn care routine. To learn more about performing aeration to beautify your yard and avoid neighbors pointing out your lawnicide, call us at ABC Home & Commercial Services.