DETHATCHING VS AERATION
Both dethatching and aerating are methods of helping the foundation of your lawn and the roots of the grass by allowing it to access the essential things it needs: air, water and nutrients. While aeration is a method of breaking up and treating the soil, dethatching is a method of breaking up and moving out thatch, a layer of natural debris that lays on top of the soil and beneath the grass. While both methods achieve similar end results, they treat different issues.

Dethatching and Aeration: The basics
What’s the difference between dethatching and aeration? Their names are great clues: Dethatching fixes thatch problems, while aeration loosens lawn soil and fixes compaction problems (it gives your soil more “air”). Core aeration removes the actual plugs of soil from your yard. Dethatching removes the layer of thatch above the soil surface.

Whether your lawn is spongy and diseased or rock-hard and patchy, dethatching and aeration are long-lasting treatments that can work together or separately to improve the flow of nutrients to roots.

Can your lawn have both thatch and compaction problems? Unfortunately, yes. If your lawn has both a spongy brown carpet and rock-hard soil, it’s a great idea to give your lawn the full spa treatment. 

You’ll want to dethatch before you aerate: Dethatching removes debris to make lawn aeration a whole lot easier and less time-consuming.

Dethatching and Aeration Tests
Testing whether your lawn is thatchy or compacted is a piece of cake.

Does my lawn need dethatching?
To measure your thatch, simply take a sample of your lawn and measure thatch depth:
1. Dig a 3-inch-deep hole in your yard and remove a small slice of soil. 
2. Measure the brown, spongy thatch layer between the grass blades and the soil surface.
3. If the thatch layer is over half an inch long, your lawn could use dethatching. 

Your lawn may need dethatching if . . .
✓  The ground is spongy and springy to the touch.
✓  Grass blades are weak.
✓  Grass is thinning and dry spots are appearing.
✓  Weeds are invading.
✓  Grass is losing its healthy, green color.
✓  Your lawn is developing an insect problem. 
✓  Your lawn is more sensitive to temperature extremes. 
✓  Fungal diseases are infecting your lawn.

Does my lawn need aeration?
Shallow root depth is a strong indicator of soil compaction. 
1. Cut out a small section of lawn at least 6 inches deep. 
2. Use a ruler to measure the length of your grass roots. 
3. If grass roots are growing only 1 to 2 inches deep, your soil probably needs aeration.
You can also test whether your soil is compacted using the “screwdriver test.” It’s not as reliable as a full cross-section, but it’s a quick, helpful indicator of compaction. If you can easily push a screwdriver 3 inches into moist soil, then you probably don’t have a compaction problem.

Your lawn may need aeration if . . . 
✓ Soil feels hard to the touch.
✓ Grass is thinning or developing diseases like brown patch. 
✓ Your lawn isn’t draining properly during rainstorms.
✓ Weeds are invading.
✓ Grass is turning yellow.
✓ Grass is growing slowly.
✓ Trees and shrubs are showing symptoms of stress (wilting, leaf scorch, early fall color, or dieback).

DETHATCHING

Like a good dandruff treatment rakes up dead skin from your scalp, lawn dethatching rakes up excessive debris and organic matter sitting on your soil’s surface. 

The problem: Thick thatch acts as a barrier against sunlight, water, oxygen, and nutrients. It diminishes soil quality and stifles root growth.
Thatch is the layer of dead leaves, grass, roots, and rhizomes that gathers between the soil surface and grass blades. Over time, thatch forms a thick cover that stops water and airflow from reaching the depths of the soil.
Extreme thatch buildup leads to several problems:
It promotes disease-causing fungi and insects. 
It also holds on to humidity. Too much moisture promotes disease. 
It restricts root growth and movement of air, water, and nutrients in the soil. 

The solution: Dethatching is the process of vigorously raking up excess thatch (the layer of dead grass, leaves, and other organic matter between grass blades and the soil surface) to give soil and grass roots access to water, oxygen, sunlight, and nutrients. 
Avoid dethatching when your lawn is dormant or stressed. Make sure you don’t dethatch in the peak of summer heat or during a drought, as this can severely damage your lawn.

A thin layer of thatch is actually healthy for your lawn. It provides nutrients for earthworms and beneficial microbes, and it insulates soil during extreme temperature shifts. It makes the lawn more resilient against wear and tear. Thatch becomes a problem when it’s more than half an inch thick. 

With proper lawn care maintenance and grass seed that isn’t prone to thatch, you may only need to dethatch your lawn every few years. However, some grass species like bermudagrass, bentgrass, and Kentucky bluegrass build a thick thatch layer and will likely need annual dethatching. 

Many factors can cause thatch on your lawn, including:
Frequently watering the lawn.
Infrequently mowing more than 1/3 of the grass blade.
Using too much lawn herbicides and fungicides. Both of these products have been proven to kill microbial activity in soils.

The Benefits of Lawn Dethatching
✓ Gives grass roots access to nutrients, water, and air
✓ Improves soil health and nutrient density
✓ Exposes lower grass shoots to more sunlight
✓ Improves the quality of your lawn
✓ Improves grass health and curb appeal
✓ Increases root strength and depth and encourages root growth
✓ Reduces susceptibility to disease, fungus, and pests
✓ Increases drought and heat tolerance
✓ Improves the effectiveness of fertilizer, so you can use less of it
✓ Saves water
✓ Controls weeds
✓ Decreases stormwater runoff
✓ Reduces puddling and standing water
✓ Reduces the potential for mower scalping

Give your grass some special care after dethatching: Fertilize, water, and overseed (if you’re not planning to aerate) to give your lawn an extra boost.

CORE AERATION
Aeration is like acupuncture for your lawn, but instead of thin needles, aerators have hollow tines that remove soil. Aeration loosens your lawn’s tight muscles and encourages better circulation of oxygen and nutrients.

Aeration helps relieve soil compaction, allowing more nutrients and air to reach your lawn’s roots. Compacted soils have too many solid particles in a certain volume or space, which prevents proper circulation of air, water and nutrients within the soil.
Aeration service literally pokes holes in your lawn. We use a machine that pulls out small plugs of soil, depositing the plugs over the top of the lawn. Those plugs of soil get mulched up the next few times you mow your lawn. The holes left after the aeration give the soil room to move and settle. It creates direct pathways for air and water to penetrate deeper and lets your lawn’s roots and runners spread and fill in the turf.

The problem: Compacted soil restricts root growth and doesn’t give roots space to receive water, oxygen, and nutrients from the soil surface.

The solution: Core aeration (also known as plug aeration) involves poking out small cores of soil from your lawn to relieve soil compaction, give roots space to grow, and increase the flow of nutrients, water, and oxygen to roots. While dethatching removes the layer of thatch above the soil surface, aeration removes actual plugs of soil from your yard.

With looser, more nutrient-rich soil, root systems can spread out and grow deeper into the soil. 

Holes in your yard may not be glamorous, but they’ll quickly fill in with dense, healthy grass.

Aeration actually decreases your need to dethatch: Looser, less compacted soil stimulates beneficial microbe growth. Microbes help decompose the thatch layer.

Good soil will have a lot of organic matter to provide nutrients, will have the capacity to hold water, but can also drain well, allowing the soil to dry out. A soil’s ability to do those three things is impacted by the type of soil and the soil structure.
There are three main types of inorganic material that all soils are made of. These particles are called clay, silt, and sand. Clay is the smallest particle size, and is “sticky” – the chemicals that form clay bond to things easily. Silt is only slightly larger than clay but doesn’t bind to things as clay does. Sand is the largest particle of the three. It drains very well and resists compaction. An ideal (roughly equal) mix of all three soil types is called loam. Combining loam with organic material creates the perfect soil.

How often should you aerate?
There are two main factors that impact how often you should aerate. The first is the amount of clay in your soil, and the second is how much traffic your lawn gets.

We recommend aerating all lawns at least once per year. If you have a high traffic lawn space (where people and pets walk around), you should aerate at least twice per year. If you have any “paths” through your lawn caused by pets, neighborhood kids, or the mailman, your lawn experiences high traffic. As a rule of thumb, any household with dogs of any size, or children also has lawns that experience high traffic. The repeated impact of even small, light feet will compact clay soils easily. This tendency can be countered by regular and consistent aeration.

When should you aerate?
We recommend aeration during the growing season once the grass is growing rapidly (but not during the peak of summer heat) to ensure that your grass quickly recovers. It can be beneficial to aerate right before fertilizing or topdressing to let those nutrients better penetrate your lawn and help it recover from the aerating process.

If you aerate during a particularly dry time of year, it is a good idea to run the sprinkler system once or twice a day or two before the aeration service. Don’t run the sprinklers the night before aeration. You want the soil damp, but not muddy.

The Benefits of Lawn Aeration
✓ Improves grass health and root growth
✓ Creates stronger roots
✓ Improves soil
✓ Increases curb appeal
✓ Reduces erosion
✓ Decreases susceptibility to disease and pests
✓ Cuts down on dethatching needs
✓ Speeds up decomposition of beneficial grass clippings
✓ Increases drought tolerance
✓ Saves water
✓ Controls weeds
✓ Reduces runoff
✓ Decreases the appearance of puddles and standing water
✓ Increases the population of beneficial organisms like earthworms

Another relatively minor benefit is that aeration slowly helps level lawns that are bumpy. This is not a quick process and literally takes years, but every time the lawn is aerated, it makes space for the soil to move and settle. Thanks to gravity, the high areas will gradually settle down until the lawn is more level.

After aeration, apply topdressing &/or fertilizer.  To encourage dense grass growth, this is the perfect time to overseed. After aeration, you’ll want to water your lawn every two to three days for the next two to three weeks. 

How should I prepare before you come to aerate my lawn?
Mow your lawn within a couple days of the scheduled aeration. Cut it a little shorter than usual.
If you aerate during a particularly dry time of year, it is a good idea to run the sprinkler system once or twice a day or two before the aeration service. Don’t run the sprinklers the night before aeration. You want the soil damp, but not muddy.
Let us know of any where you have drip irrigation as those areas cannot be aerated. Areas with drip irrigation should have soil amended to resist compaction since they can’t be aerated.
Mark all sprinkler heads before we arrive or be sure we have access to your system, so we can mark them upon arrival.
Combining aeration with fertilizer &/or topdressing is always very useful. Topdressing right after aeration helps distribute the good compost-rich soil deeper into the soil, doing more for your soil than either topdressing or aeration alone.  It’s also a great time to think about overseeding your lawn.
Don’t mow immediately after the aeration, but it is a good idea to mow it once in the following week unless you have overseeded too then you will need to wait a little longer to mow.

Give your lawn the gift of air! Trust us, your lawn will thank you! Contact us today!