Key Takeaways
- Lawn aeration improves water, air, and nutrient access for healthier grass growth.
- It reduces soil compaction, enhances root development, and prevents thatch buildup.
- Aeration methods include core, spike, and liquid aeration, each with unique benefits.
- The best time to aerate depends on your grass type—fall for cool-season, spring for warm-season.
What Is Lawn Aeration?
Lawn aeration is the process of creating small holes in the soil to improve the flow of air, water, and nutrients to grass roots.
This enhances root development, supports beneficial microorganisms, and promotes overall lawn health.
Regular aeration is key to a healthy lawn, including:
- It allows more air and nutrients to penetrate the soil, which provides plant roots and microorganisms with the necessary amounts of oxygen and resources to enable healthy grass growth.
- It enhances water infiltration, reducing the risk of erosion, pooling, or runoff and promoting deeper root growth.
- It reduces soil compaction, which assists with porosity and enables the aforementioned benefits.
- It helps manage thatch buildup on the soil surface, which can prevent resources from reaching grass roots.
How to Aerate a Lawn
There are multiple ways to aerate a lawn, so note the different equipment each technique requires.
Typically, the process involves:
- Mowing, as shorter grass makes it easier for your instrument or solution to reach and deeply penetrate the soil.
- Watering the lawn a couple of days before aerating, as the soil needs to be moist. Dry soil is harder to penetrate, and saturated soil can become muddy and more compacted.
- Making multiple passes over the lawn using your spike or lawn core aerator or soaking it with your liquid aerator.
- Watering the lawn to help the soil settle and allow the nutrients to reach the roots.
- Fertilizing and overseeding if necessary. We recommend not skipping the former!
Leave the soil plugs you extracted during core aeration on the ground; they’ll decompose over time.
If liquid aeration isn’t an option, core aeration is generally preferred over spike aeration, as it produces long-term results.
When to Aerate a Lawn?
Aerate your lawn during your plants’ peak growing season, particularly if it looks thin or weak in areas with high foot traffic.
If you planted cool-season grasses, like Kentucky bluegrass or fescue, aerate anytime during early spring and early fall.
Warm-season grasses, like St. Augustine or Zoysia, thrive from late spring through early summer when the weather is hot.
As for the frequency, aerating your lawn once annually should suffice, especially in areas where heavy clay soil is the norm.
If some of your areas are prone to higher foot traffic, they’ll need to be treated more frequently, as their compacted soil will hinder water infiltration and root growth.
Note that over-aeration or aerating at the wrong time will stress your grasses and affect your lawn’s health.
First time hearing about aeration? Glad we could help!
At SunCo Lawns, our experts have devised a transformative natural aeration method with Soil Builder to help you achieve the lush, vibrant lawn you deserve!
Learn more about liquid aeration to get a better understanding of how this solution works.
Additional Terms to Understand
- What Is Aeration? Learn about aeration in general, why it’s important, and the different aeration methods.
- What Is Core Aeration? Learn about one of the foundational aeration techniques: core aeration.
- What Is Liquid Aeration? Discover the innovative, non-intrusive aeration technique and what makes it special!
