Want to keep a beautiful lawn? We highly endorse aerating, lightly thatching, and over seeding your lawn annually in the spring months. You may wonder why, given that our ryegrass lawns don’t build thatch. The big deal here is new & improved grass cultivars.
This three in one package works wonders
Lawn aeration helps to dry out wet soils, helps water to penetrate the soil better, and gets fertilizer down into the soil where it is needed. You may already be aware of these things. But aerating the lawn is only the beginning.
Lightly thatching the lawn combs out old and dead vegetation. It also helps to break up the plugs that came up while plugging the lawn.This removes the eye sore of clods of dirt on top of your lawn. The crumbled up soil also gives a tooth for the grass seed to root into. That’s a good thing.
If your lawn has worms, specifically large worms that bring up worm castings, the light thatching will pulverize them and level the lumps.
We typically use a thatcher with spring tines rather than blades. These don’t tear turf the way blades do. They also pretty much can’t damage sprinklers and walkways.
Over seeding adds new grass plants to the lawn which replaces plants that have died. This is our main objective. Additionally, we typically use better grass cultivars than were previously available. (The turf grass growers down in the Willamette valley come out with better cultivars every year.)
Most lawns today consist mostly of ryegrass, especially if they were installed within the last 20-30 years. Even older lawns have a lot of ryegrass in them which proves they have been over seeded. Ok, what’s different about ryegrass?
Ryegrass does not spread vegetatively like bluegrass or fescue grasses. Thus, if a grass plant dies, there is nothing to replace it. If not replaced your lawn will become thinner as time passes. In other words it just goes down hill.
In good condition you can scarcely tell that anything was done
If the weather is nice, you could come home and not notice that anything was even done. The process can be just that clean. Of course we can’t guarantee that since we have no control over the weather and other factors.
Is there a downside?
Just one, cost. This procedure is somewhat labor intensive and uses special equipment plus materials. It can easily run several hundred dollars. But if you want to keep your lawn in prime condition, consider doing this service often—preferably annually.