Understanding Core Aeration

During a long summer, a lot can happen between when you set intentions for caring for your lawn and what actually happens when you become busy and distracted. It’s easy to begin a lawn care routine and assume that your lawn’s needs won’t change throughout the season. However, that’s rarely the case. 

Although your lawn care routine might be suitable for your yard when you established it, a routine will always fail to consider the outside factors that affect your lawn. Things like animal traffic and weather conditions will greatly impact how your grass absorbs nutrients. When we ignore these factors, soil compaction is likely to occur and cause turf to lack the ability to get what it needs from your lawn care routine. 

 

Understanding Soil Compaction

While we want to use our yards for fun, human interaction with our lawns is likely to cause compaction as well as other factors. When other issues arise like organic matter or thatch, the grass and soil are unable to thrive. With compact soil, air, water, and nutrients have a tough time passing through to feed the roots. This can cause a myriad of problems like heat dress, drought, or an overall weak lawn. 

 

Signs of Compacted Soil water puddling on grass

When life gets busy, missing signs will be easier when you aren’t sure of what they are.

Being aware of symptoms such as: 

  • Pooling water: Water gathering on top of your turf will be from the lack of ability to absorb water. 
  • Hardening soil: One way to check this is to try to stick a gardening tool into the soil to see if it’s hard. If it is, it can be a tell-tale sign of compacted soil.
  • Thatch: If your turf becomes spongy to the touch, it could be a sign of thatch, which is a thick layer of material that gathers between the grass and the soil, attracting pests. 

 

Treating Soil Compaction

Once you’ve successfully identified an issue of compacted soil in your turf, it’s time to start treating it. Aerating your lawn is the best way to achieve soil that is loose and ready to absorb nutrients. Once your turf is aerated, it allows your lawn to thrive with the routine you have originally put in place to care for it. 

 

Understanding Core Aerationaeration

Using core aeration your lawn is the act of strategically disturbing the soil underneath your turf without ruining your grass. By poking holes throughout your lawn, your soil will find room to move around and allow all the nutrients to flow through it. 

 

Calling Alpine Tree and Lawn Care for Professional Help! 

Here at Alpine, we know that it can be tough to keep up to date with what is going on with your lawn. That’s why we’re around to do it for you. If you feel like your lawn exhibits any of the symptoms of soil compaction, it’s not too late to fix it with aeration!

Call Alpine Tree and Lawn today at (586) 884-7799, or contact us online and find us on social media on our Facebook page to see what we’re up to.

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