If you started out with a decent lawn, but now find yourself with thinning areas, brown patches or weeds, despite careful watering and fertilization, you might be at a loss as to what to do next. All of your best intentions can be undermined by improper soil maintenance. Renovating your lawn through aeration and seeding can go a a long way toward restoring its health and appearance.
Significance
Two common problems that affect the health and appearance of your lawn are soil compaction and thatch buildup. Soil compaction occurs when the soil in your lawn becomes too tightly packed to allow sufficient air and moisture to reach the roots. Compaction can happen naturally as your lawn ages. It can also happen if your lawn has heavy foot or vehicle traffic, or has a high clay content. Thatch is matted debris from dead grass roots and leaves that sits in a layer on top of the soil. A thin layer of thatch helps grass roots retain moisture and aids soil decomposition. When thatch becomes too thick, however, it prevents light and air from reaching grass roots.
Aeration Benefits
Aeration breaks up the soil and cuts through the thatch in your lawn, letting air, moisture and nutrients in. The University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension office notes that aeration also promotes thatch decomposition, and helps prevent fertilizer and pesticide runoff that can occur in compacted soil. The extension office suggests that your lawn can benefit from aeration if your soil is moderately to severely compacted, if your thatch buildup exceeds 1 inch and if you are planning to overseed.
Aerator Types
Aerators come in several types. Vertical mowers are motorized tools that use blades to cut through thatch. Slicers and spikers are nonmotorized units that use rollers with attached knives, discs or round spikes to pierce through thatch and soil. Solid tine aerators use metal tines to punch holes in soil. Core aerators have hollow metal tines or spoons that pull up plugs of earth and deposit them on the ground, breaking up thatch and soil. As the plugs work themselves back into the ground, they help redistribute the soil. Core aeration is the most effective aeration method, and is highly recommended for general lawn maintenance, according to the University of Illinois Extension office.
Seeding Function
Periodically overseeding your lawn builds up weak growth areas and helps ensure that your grass stays lush and dense. For slow-spreading clump grasses such as fescue, yearly overseeding is especially important for maintaining thickness. You can also use warm-weather grasses in spring and overseed cool-weather grasses in fall in mild, intermediate climates. When one goes dormant, the other takes over, preventing soil erosion during dormancy, and giving your lawn year-round color.
Seeding Types
Seeding is most successfully done after aeration because the process gives grass seed optimum access to light, water and nutrients. Seeding can be done be hand or by using a broadcaster, although these methods don't ensure evenness. Slit seeding combines vertical mowing with seeding, by dropping grass seed into the grooves made by the mower blade. Slit seeding offers the most even result and gives seeds the best soil contact.
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