Are you familiar with thatch? Our team at Portage Turf Specialists LLC certainly is! You may have noticed thatch on your lawn. It’s a layer of stems, roots, debris, and dead grass that accumulates between the soil and the healthy grass—and if it becomes thick enough, it can cause serious damage to your lawn. Why? Because it becomes a playground for weeds, lawn diseases, insects, and grubs. Grubs alone can eat and destroy your lawn’s root system, so it’s important to keep heavy thatch at bay. It can also prevent enough air and water from reaching the soil. If thatch becomes a half-inch or thicker on top of your yard, you’re at risk for these problems.
Aeration is the best way, and aeration also has lots of other great benefits for your lawn.
Aeration is the process of pulling thousands of soil plugs out of the lawn to help reduce compaction and thatch layers, promote oxygen and water infiltration, and promote deep healthy root systems which in turn will help provide the thick healthy lawn we are looking for. Think of all you do to compact your lawn over the period of a year- Kids playing, parties, yard sales, mowing with heavy mowers- especially when it’s too wet (surely many times with this year’s wet summer) and just simply walking on your lawn all lead to severe lawn compaction. Concrete hard soil conditions make root development next to impossible, water simply runs off into the ditches as it’s not able to penetrate, and often overlooked is just getting oxygen to the root system itself.
Fall aeration is an essential part of any complete lawncare package and is best done now as turf root systems are at their highest rate of growth and quickly recover. We prefer core aeration over thatching or dethatching as these processes barely scratch the surface. Aeration goes deep to relieve the compaction and all those cores on the surface pair well with our organic-based fertilizers as the billions of beneficial microbes begin using all that thatch for food- talk about unleashing a dethatcher! With all that freshly loosened soil it is also the ideal time for lawn seeding. Whether it’s patching a few thin spots or slit-seeding or overseeding the whole lawn with a newer variety of darker, more drought, disease and insect resistant variety of turfgrass- ample fall rains, heavy dews, and cooler days will help to ensure seeding success.
De-thatching through aeration brings fresh soil above the problematic area in order to control natural decomposition. Along with aeration, we usually also do over-seeding to evenly distribute fresh seed over the lawn.
Lawns need a good de-thatching about once a year, or whenever the thatch gets to be around half an inch thick.
Our aeration services at Portage Turf help lawns stretch their root systems and progress into healthy areas. We provide naturally better lawn care to the communities of Kent, Ravenna, Aurora, and Hudson, OH, and we proudly offer a certified organic lawn-care program to make your lawn a little more “green”. Contact us at (330) 296-8873 to learn more, or schedule a free lawn analysis with us!
