Your Complete Guide to Lawn Aeration

To maintain lawn, especially on a commercial scale, proper lawn care practices are a must! Mowing, fertilising and watering the lawn is a good start, but extra maintenance tasks like aeration will take your lawn’s health to the next level.

Here, we look at what lawn aeration is, and how you can achieve the best possible results.

What is Lawn Aeration?

Lawn aeration occurs when the soil is perforated with small holes that allow air, water, and nutrients to penetrate the grass right down to its roots. The roots will therefore grow stronger and deeper, resulting in a healthier lawn.

Lawn aeration is essential for the health of a lawn, especially in a commercial setting where perfect grass all year-round is required to maintain the landscape’s aesthetic appeal. Without aeration, the soil can become compacted, which causes solid particles to gather in a certain volume or space, which prevents proper air, water and nutrient circulation and starves the roots of the resources it needs to thrive.

How Can You Tell if a Lawn Needs Aerating?

Lawn aeration is beneficial to almost any lawn, but the following tell-tale signs will determine how important it is for the lawn in question.

– The lawn gets a lot of foot traffic. For example, playgrounds, sporting grounds, golf courses and etc.

– The grass was planted on the topsoil of a newly constructed plot of land. Often the topsoil in construction areas is stripped and buried, leaving the grass to establish on subsoil that has been compacted by construction traffic.

– The grass dries out easily or has a spongy feel. This is often a sign of thatch issues.

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When is the Best Time to Aerate Your Lawn?

Lawn aeration should take place during the growing season. During this time, the grass can heal and any open areas where soil plugs have been removed can start to fill in. For optimum results, aerate cool season grass in early spring and warm season grass in late spring.

What Equipment Should You Use?

For lawn aeration, we recommend using the Toro range of ProCore aerators. These towable aerators deliver consistent tine depth over undulating terrain. Swappable solid and cored tines, together with angulation control actuated from the tractor, allow for different cultivation practices within the same mission. Toro ProCore aerators offer a range of aeration swathes from 48 inches to 94 inches.

There is also the Toro 686/687 Aerator, which is a great way to aerate large turf areas. 32 kg cast wheels, a weight of 644kg and a unique floating head design enable it to achieve consistent hole depth, while auxiliary rear weights are available to deal with especially compacted turf.

Check out our range of Lawn Aerators here or to learn more about how to aerate a lawn and what equipment you can use, contact the team at T-Quip today!