Since you have dethatched your lawn it’s time to help your lawn breathe! Spring is the perfect time for lawn aeration to allow your lawn to get some extra access to oxygen and before the warmer season of summer.
If you have not dethatched your lawn yet, check out our handy article on it: Dethatching Your Lawn
Why aerate your lawn?
It is important to aerate your lawn, over time the soil underneath your lawn gets compacted thus restricting the amount of air and nutrients to the root system of your lawn.
Healthy soils are a mixture of solid soil particles, water and air. When your lawn is compacted there is less air and water available for your lawn. By regularly aerating your lawn you give it a breath of fresh air and help it thrive, sending its root system deeper into the now freshly-oxygenated soil.
It is also the perfect time to fertilise your lawn with the new holes letting the nutrients get to where it is needed.
Tools to aerate your lawn
Aerator tools:
- Garden fork
- Lawn aeration sandals
- Cyclone Tubular Steel Lawn Aerator
- Petrol Lawn Corer Aerator
Other tools:
- Rake
- Wheelbarrow
Lawn aeration methods
Garden Fork
One of the simplest methods of lawn aeration is with a garden fork. Dig the fork at least 10cm into the ground and give the fork a good wiggle forwards and backwards to open up holes in your soil. Repeat this process at about 10cm intervals across your lawn.
Upside: You can use what you have at home.
Downside: Manual and time-consuming.
Lawn aeration sandals
A fun and cheap toy that could help you aerate your lawn is a pair of lawn aerator sandals. While they may look like something for hiking through snow they are actually for easily putting lots of little holes over your lawn.
Upside: Cheap and easy.
Downside: Only works if the soil isn’t too hard and makes small holes.
Cyclone Tubular Steel Lawn Aerator
To really do it right with a tool you can keep at home you can’t go past the Cyclone Tubular Steel Lawn Aerator available from your local Bunnings store. By removing plugs of soil this is the best hand tool available in Australia for lawn aeration. By removing the plugs of soil this tool opens up your lawn to a fresh breath of air without compacting the soil around the hole like a garden fork or lawn aeration sandals.
Upside: Easy to store at home to aerate your lawn as required year round.
Downside: Heavy work by hand, plugs will need to be cleaned up afterwards.
Petrol Lawn Corer Aerator
If you have a large lawn that needs aerating or want to do your properly without the hard labour of manual labour you can head to your local machinery hire company and get a petrol powered lawn core aerator. The petrol power will make light work of the job ensuring you get good quality cores being pulled out.
Upside: Great for large areas, lighter work and better quality.
Downside: mess left behind and cost of hire.
For more advice on aerating your lawn call our team on (07) 3114 8281. You can also to pop in and order in person at our sales office on 1/243 Bradman Street, Acacia Ridge. The office opens Monday to Friday 7am to 5pm and Saturday 7am to 12pm.
For more great turf, tips keep an eye on our website and all our social media channels.
