Core Aeration
Aeration
Regular core aeration is critical in maintaining a healthy organic lawn. Aerating loosens compacted soil, increases oxygen to the roots, improves water and nutrient infiltration, encourages strong root growth, and breaks up thatch build-up.
Healthy looking grass has to start with healthy roots. Roots need oxygen from the soil to grow strong. Compacted soil restricts oxygen supply to the roots. Aerating loosens the compacted soil, which allows oxygen, water, and nutrients to reach the roots more easily. Aeration helps create a healthy soil source for roots to grow stronger and deeper, which makes the lawn more drought and disease tolerant. It is best to aerate every year on a continual basis.
Overseeding is highly recommended with all aerations. Just like everything else, grass ages, and reproduction rates slow. Thinning grass allows room for weeds to grow. Overseeding cycles in new grass to compensate for the natural slow down of the turf’s reproduction and insures your lawn stays thick and dense. Thick grass is less susceptible to weed growth. Also, there are new advances in grass seed every year improving disease resistance than those varieties already in your lawn.
Aeration also helps with thatch. Thatch is the undecomposed or partially decomposed layer of living and dead grass stems, roots, rhizomes, stolons and other organic matter that is found between the soil surface and grass blades. Thatch provides a desirable environment for turf insects and diseases. It also promotes shallow grass rooting by limiting root and rhizomes penetration into the soil. In most cases, it will not allow new grass seeds to have seed to soil contact for proper seed germination. Thatch levels also prevent fertilizers from reaching the soil.
Mulching or recycling your grass clippings and thatch are simply not connected; research has shown that grass roots are the primary cause of thatch, not grass clippings. Never bag your grass!
To have core aeration or seeding please contact Omaha Organic Lawn Care.