Core Aeration & Overseeding

Combining core aeration and overseeding can make lawns thicker and greener.

Regular lawn maintenance is important to the health of your lawn. Core aeration and overseeding are both used to promote growth and to thicken the lawn. Core aeration enhances water infiltration from rainfall and irrigation, improves root growth and helps to prevent run off of fertilizers and pesticides. Overseeding helps prevent disease, drought and insect infestation in lawns.

Core Aeration

Core aeration is the process of removing hundreds of small plugs of soil from your lawn. Removing plugs from a lawn allows air, water and nutrients into the root zone. Grass that is growing in extremely compacted soil will grow very slowly and does not thicken.

How is a Lawn Aerated?

Aeration is done with mechanical core aerators that are specifically designed to remove plugs from a lawn. They have hollow tines mounted on wheels. The majority are gas powered and self-propelled, but manual ones are still used. As the hollow tines cross the lawn, they remove small soil plugs.

Time Frame

Most lawns should be aerated once per growing season, but if the soil in your area is a clay-based soil it is recommended to aerate in the spring and again in the fall. Hot summer months are not a good time to aerate.

Overseeding

Overseeding is simply the process of spreading grass seed around your lawn. Grass seed can be thrown by hand or via a spread fertilizer. Overseeding produces a thick, full lawn that is more resistant to disease, insects, heavy traffic and drought. Overseeding reduces the amount of fertilizer, water and pesticides needed.

When to Overseed

Typically the best time to overseed is in the fall. Combining the two treatments, core aeration and overseeding, is a popular fall option. Seeds that have settled into aeration holes have a better chance of germination.

References

• Seasons Green Turf Management