Texas summers seem like they could go on forever, but pretty soon, the cooler weather of autumn will creep up on us. Now’s the time to consider how to care for your lawn and give it a boost to survive the occasional cold spell and make it to spring. One of the best ways you can do that is with an aeration treatment this fall.
Why You Should Add Aeration To Your Lawn Care Service This Fall
Core aeration, also known as traditional aeration, is a treatment that involves a specialized tool known as an aerator. Your lawn care technician will walk this machine across your yard and remove hundreds or thousands of tiny “plugs” of soil from your lawn. When we do this, it breaks up compacted soil. Compacted soil is hard, like concrete, and makes it difficult for our turfgrass to expand its root system. Ideally, your soil should be loose and airy, so the grass has room to breathe – literally! When you include aeration in your lawn service program, it will break up the compacted earth, allowing air, water, light, and nutrients to reach the root system once more. Both spring and fall are good times to aerate, but fall is the ideal time.
Don’t Let Soil Stay Compacted
Soil naturally becomes compacted over time through things like thatch build-up and foot traffic. Depending on how you use your lawn, it will get compacted at a faster rate. Summer is the season when we spend the most time outdoors, so your lawn is most likely to experience compaction during this season. Aeration of soil in the fall is ideal because it gets the lawn ready for the next growing period in spring. If you decide to overseed your lawn to thicken it up, which is a good idea in the fall, the freshly aerated soil will be more receptive to the new grass seed.
Fall Aeration Helps Control Weeds
When you aerate in the fall, it creates the perfect scenario for applying weed control products. By being proactive about weeds in the fall, you’re less likely to experience them in spring – when weeds are ramping up their invasion of our lawns. And since weeds begin to go dormant in the fall, you’re less likely to kick them up to the surface of the soil, as you would be in spring. Now, we’re not suggesting you don’t aerate in spring, but fall happens to come with fewer strings attached.
Get Year-Round Green With Cool-Season Grass
Cool-season grass likes the cooler weather, as you might have guessed from the name. After aerating, you can overseed your lawn with a cool-season variety. This will help thicken it up and can even give you year-round green. When the warm-season grass like St. Augustine, Bermuda, and Zoysia are going dormant, fescues and Kentucky bluegrass are ready to roll. And as we touched on previously, having tiny holes in your lawn from the aeration process helps the new grass nestle into the earth.
Grass Grows Best In Fall
This may seem counter-intuitive. Shouldn’t grass grow best in spring? The truth is fall has cooler nights and milder days, which are actually the best conditions for new grass seed. And without the scorching summer temperatures, the new grass can retain its moisture levels better. And the seeds will have less competition from weeds.
Thatch Is Thicker In Fall
“Thatch” is the term for all the dead organic matter that builds up in our lawns. Generally, it’s made of things like flower petals, dead grass, and dead leaves. At the tail end of summer, the thatch layer is usually at its thickest, especially if you haven’t raked in the spring. Some thatch is beneficial; it can actually help retain moisture levels and even help smother weeds. But if it’s too thick, it will start to choke out the grass. When you aerate in the fall, it targets the thatch when it’s at its worst.
Get Aeration And Organic Lawn Care Near Grapevine, TX
If you’re looking for a gentler yet effective approach to lawn care, Organic Matter Lawn Care has the solution. We can aerate your lawn and provide effective yet environmentally-friendly fertilizer to get your lawn ready for the winter. We like to follow up your aeration treatment with high-quality organic compost to add natural nutrients and help with moisture retention. If you’d like to learn more or schedule a treatment, give us a call at 817-888-8961 or leave us a message online!
You can also check out our blog page, where we post helpful monthly articles!
