Aerating your lawn is an important part of caring for it each season. This process of punching small holes in the soil helps strengthen your lawn by freeing tangled grass and constricted roots and allowing compacted soil to receive some extra air, water, and nutrients. When you don’t aerate your lawn, excess thatch and debris on the top of the lawn can starve the grass’ roots of water and nutrients, and ultimately cause the grass to die.
There are two methods of aerating.
The first one involves removing soil cores. With this method, the aerating machine actually pulls small chunks of soil out of the lawn in order to create open channels in the remaining soil. These channels allow the root systems underneath the lawn bed to have greater access to fresh air and water, which will make grasses grow stronger.
The second method of aerating involves simply punching holes in your lawn with a tool such as a pitchfork. This method works to break up the soil in the same way, but if your lawn is already severely compacted, this method could cause further compaction.
The best time to aerate your lawn is during the height of the growing season when your grass will quickly fill in any holes that are punched or removed. The peak of the growing season will vary depending on what area of the country you live in and what type of grass you have.