Taking care of your lawn is a full-time job that usually requires more than just watering and mowing. For example, aeration is one of those extra jobs you can do to improve your lawn’s health significantly. However, it is tricky to figure out when your lawn needs aeration.
Unfortunately, it’s more complex than mowing, which depends on a simple visual inspection of the length of your grass. So, how do you know if you need to aerate your lawn? Well, here are the common signs you should look for.
Common Signs of a Lawn that Needs Aeration (The Short Answer)
There are several common signs indicating a lawn needs aeration and can be identified by either the deteriorating health of the grass or the conditions the lawn is subjected to. Here are eight factors you should watch out for.
- Excessive Lawn Thatch
- High Clay Content Soil
- Compacted Soil
- Drainage Issues
- Excessively Dry Soil Surface
- Excessive Water Runoff
- Poor Root Systems
- Failing Grass
Signs That You Need to Aerate Your Lawn (How to Spot)
If you are asking yourself, does my lawn need aeration, and you’re unsure what signs to look out for, here are eight problems you might notice. So, let’s take a closer look at why aerating a lawn is necessary.
Excessive Lawn Thatch
If you are not bagging your grass clippings when you mow, then you’re laying down a layer of thatch. In most cases, this is a good thing as long as you manage the thickness of the thatch. If the thatch becomes too thick, say more than ½ an inch, it creates a barrier that prevents water and nutrients from absorbing into the soil.
So, you might say, why can’t you just dethatch? Well, you could, but there are times when you shouldn’t pull out the dethatcher. For example, if your lawn is in poor health, dethatching can be harmful. So, to break this thatch barrier, aeration is a perfect solution.
High Clay Content Soil
Depending on where you live in the country, you might have high clay content in your lawn soil. Because clay is a very dense material, it is notorious for repelling water and trapping air. The gaps between the clay particles are so small that water and oxygen find it very difficult to penetrate. So, aerating your lawn will assist water, nutrients, and air in reaching the roots of your lawn.
Compacted Soil
Areas of your lawn that get a lot of foot traffic will, over time, become heavily compacted. This is similar to issues created by clay. Water, nutrients, and air find it much harder to penetrate the soil due to the reduced air spaces within the soil. Therefore the grass roots become starved of the vital ingredients they need to grow successfully.
For example, I have a section of lawn between my garage and my front door that people tend to use as a shortcut. This area of lawn always struggles unless I regularly aerate my lawn.
Drainage Issues
Poor drainage is one side effect of compacted soil or soil with a high clay content. If the water is unable to penetrate quickly enough to drain, you’ll end up with either puddles or areas of standing water.
For example, clay soil absorbs water at a rate of around ¼ inch per hour. In my experience, this is less than the average irrigation flow rate per hour and certainly a lot less than what can fall during a typical summer downpour.
Excessively Dry Soil Surface
Another problem you may have is an excessively dry soil surface caused by high temperatures. The issue comes when the top of the soil is baked hard and creates an impervious layer. Water, air, and nutrients are basically unable to penetrate the hard soil.
Aeration is an easy way to get through this layer, allowing water, air, and nutrients to penetrate the soil. So, you guys living in areas that suffer flash floods are familiar with the problems of hard dirt.
Excessive Water Runoff
Standing water is an issue for those of you with flat lawns, but runoff becomes an issue for those with sloped lawns. In many cases, excessive water runoff can be devastating for a lawn and its surrounding area. In addition, runoff is one of the main contributors to soil erosion and water pollution because as the water runs off the surface, it carries away both the soil and surface nutrients.
If you live close to a body of water, the fertilizer you have applied is carried away into the water. Water runoff containing nitrogen fertilizer is a huge problem as it feeds microorganisms that deplete the water of oxygen, resulting in problems such as algae blooms and red tide.
Not only does this kill aquatic life, but the algae releases a toxin into the air affecting land/air animals, including humans.
Poor Root Systems
The main purpose of aeration is to create passages in the soil to allow air, water, and nutrients to reach the roots of your lawn. If you don’t aerate your lawn, the roots will begin to die and kill your lawn entirely. So, if you notice your lawn is taking a turn for the worse, then it could be due to a lack of aeration.
Failing Grass
You don’t have to dig into your lawn to check the health of the roots. Instead, visually inspecting the grass blades can tell you a lot about the lawn’s health. For example, if you notice your lawn turning from a lush green into a yellow/brown color, then your soil could be the problem.
Also, standing water will suffocate and rot your grass, turning your lawn yellow/brown. So, keep a close eye on your lawn and watch out for any changes that a lack of aeration could cause.
What Will Likely Happen if You Don’t Aerate Your Lawn
Depending on your type of lawn and soil makeup, you may face different degrees of lawn damage. However, any lawn with absorption problems caused by the soil will suffer. Here’s a list of potential issues you might face if you don’t aerate when you should.
- Water Runoff
- Soil Erosion
- Waterbody Pollution
- Standing Water
- Nutrient Deficient Grass
- Oxygen Deprived Grass
- Dehydrate Lawn
- Dying Lawn
Does My Lawn Need Aeration?
Now that we have looked at the common signs to tell if your lawn needs aeration, let’s look at a few of the tests you can do to check. There are a couple of quick tests you can carry out which will keep you ahead of any problems your lawn might face either now or in the future. Here is how I figure out if I need to aerate my lawn.
The Soakage Test
An easy test is to observe your lawn either when it rains or when you water. If the water is running off or puddling, aeration is likely needed. For example, you’ll know there is a drainage issue if your lawn is holding water after a regular rainshower.
The Screwdriver Test
Another test you can do is to push a long screwdriver into the soil. If it takes a lot of effort to push through the soil, then you can imagine how difficult it would be for water & air to get through. If this is the case, I suggest adding aeration to your lawn maintenance schedule twice a year.
Do All Lawns Need to be Aerated?
Aeration really comes down to the type and condition of your soil. If you live in an area with clay soil, then it is pretty much guaranteed that you’ll need to aerate your lawn twice a year during spring and fall. But if you have good soil, such as sandy soil, then aeration isn’t a necessity because sandy soil doesn’t become as densely packed as clay. If anything, sandy soil needs additional topsoil added to reduce the level of water and nutrient drainage.
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