Aerating the lawn: Advantages and procedures for aerating the lawn?

The roots of the lawn are happy about more air. Therefore, aerating the lawn – also known as aerating – is essential for a lush green.

In addition to that, intensive care also includes: Lawn fertilizing, scarify and lawn sands among other things, the aeration of the lawn, the so-called aerating. In chronological order, aerating comes after scarifying and before sanding.

Why aerate the lawn?

Every plant desires an aerated and well-drained soil. For this reason, people always avoid climbing into or stepping around unnecessarily in a vegetable patch. When it comes to grass, the situation is different. It serves as a way of playing, as a path to beds and fruit trees and - equipped with garden furniture - as a seat or bed. Over time, this constant stress causes compaction to develop even in originally well-structured soils. Soils with high proportions of silt and clay and less sand are particularly at risk of being compacted. For the soil, compaction means that the cavities between soil particles, plant roots and Worm ducts are squeezed further and further and less and less air can enter these cavities can. The soil also loses its drainage capacity due to compaction. Water is less able to drain away and accumulates in the upper soil layers. Moss, lichen, and certain weeds thrive in poorly drained soil, while even the best grasses don't do well. In order to improve the air and water transport in the upper soil layers again, the soil is therefore aerated or aerated.

Aerate or scarify the lawn?

Aerating the lawn is not an alternative to scarifying. Scarifying serves to combat moss and thatch and is the basis for further care measures. If moss and thatch prevent air and water from reaching the soil surface, then it doesn't help the soil if it is well aerated. However, there are devices that can be used to combine scarifying and aerating. more on the subject moss in the lawn find out in this article.

Aerating the lawn: procedure and options

When aerating the lawn, the soil layer near the surface should be penetrated in order to improve air and water transport and stimulate root growth. This is essentially achieved by piercing the ground. Depending on the type of soil and lawn area, different devices are more or less suitable. On smaller areas, even piercing with a digging fork can have a positive effect. When you slowly pull it out, the floor is usually lifted a little and thus slightly loosened and aired. Special "spoons", metal cylinders that resemble a digging fork, have more tines next to each other and thus work more effectively. Rolling lawn scarifiers also pierce the ground with tines, but do not always have to be pierced and pulled out. They are more suited to soft, sandy soils.

The so-called "hollow spoons" or hollow forks work in the same way as the spoons, but dig out small ground pins from the ground and leave tubes in the ground. The soil cylinders are then mixed with sand (see sand lawn) simply spread over the lawn with a rake. Ours, for example, is excellent for sanding Plantura Premium Lawn Sand. This ensures better ventilation and water permeability of the floor. This prevents waterlogging in the upper soil layers and increases the resilience of the lawn.

There are also hollow forks with a collection container. In this case, the dug out soil pins can be placed in the vegetable patch, for example, and the soil tubes can be completely filled with sand. This is particularly recommended in soils with very fine, clayey soil and little sand. One way to aerate small areas with little effort are lawn aerator shoes. These are mostly sandals with nails on the soles. By walking across the lawn, the nails dig into the ground. Although these spiked shoes aerate less deeply, the holes are closer together, which normally increases the aeration success. For larger areas there are electric aerating devices with aerators, often machines that combine scarifying and aerating.

Devices for lawn aeration: aerator roller and Co.

• For manual ventilation on smaller areas: digging fork, spoons, hollow fork or Hollow spoons (with or without collecting basket), rolling lawn aerators
• For aerating with your feet: lawn aerating shoes
• For larger areas: Electric aerating devices with aerator rollers, often combined with scarifiers

When to aerate the lawn: in spring, summer or autumn?

The lawn should be aerated after mowing and scarifying take place. When scarifying, the soil surface is opened and moss and lichen are removed. After scarifying, the moss and weeds that have been torn out are removed and the air can already penetrate to the soil surface. These are ideal conditions for ventilation. That is why there are now many devices that do scarifying and aerating at the same time. But both scarifying and aerating put a lot of strain on the soil and the grass. Therefore, for example, dry and hot times, which mean stress for the lawn anyway, are less recommended for scarifying and ventilation measures. Even cold and humid periods do not produce optimal results. Depending on the weather conditions, a date at the end of May or beginning of June is ideal after a few days to a week of drought. If you want to scarify and/or aerate a second time, you can do this during a dry week in September when it is no longer that hot. Depending on the type of floor, it can also be aired more frequently.

Aerate the lawn: when?

• After scarifying and removing all remains of scarifying
• Not when it's hot and dry
• Not if it's too cold and damp
• Soil must be absolutely dry
• Late May/early June is ideal
• Possibly a second time in September

Aerating the lawn: benefits

• Stepping on the lawn causes compaction.
• Due to compaction, too little air gets into the topsoil and water can hardly seep through.
• Mosses, lichens and certain weeds are encouraged by these conditions, and grasses are weakened.
• ventilation or Aerating counteracts soil compaction.

Aerating the lawn: disadvantages

In the case of loamy soils, which are usually particularly affected by compaction, aeration can result in the piercing of the resulting hole walls becoming firmly smeared and compacted. When that happens, the aeration was either pointless or even counterproductive if the soil and roots are even less aerated by the hole compaction. This danger can be reduced by only aerating well-dried soil and sanding after aerating very loamy soil.

If you are struggling with moss in your lawn, you usually cannot avoid scarifying. In our special article you can find out when and how often you scarify the lawn should.