It’s Time to Schedule Your Core Aeration and Reseeding Appointment
Now that it’s late summer, it’s time to make an appointment for your Rockland County, NY or your Bergen County, NJ lawn to be core aerated and reseeded.
Fall is the perfect time to have your lawn core aerated and reseeded. It’s the end of the season when you want to alleviate your soil’s compaction caused by foot traffic and mowing. Plus, the days are still warm enough to successfully grow turf, yet the summer heat is past so you don’t have to worry about your new grass suffering from heat stress.
Core Aeration
What is core aeration? At Majestic Lawn Care and Landscape, we use a mechanized aerator that will pull tiny plugs of soil from your lawn. These plugs will dissolve back into the ground as soon as you irrigate your lawn or when it rains again.
Here are five benefits to core aeration:
- It opens up your lawn to receive more oxygen, light and water.
- It also allows your soil to breathe because, not only will it receive more oxygen, but it’ll also release pent up carbon dioxide.
- It allows water from your irrigation system or from rain to percolate deep into the soil. The result: Your soil will have deep moisture reserves that encourages your new turf to develop deep root systems. Extra moisture and nutrients are stored in the turf’s roots over the winter when your lawn is dormant.
- It works to improve your soil’s overall health because healthy soil equals a beautiful and dense lawn.
- It prepares your soil to receive grass seed.
Overseeding
If you have areas of your yard where grass is struggling to grow, let alone thrive, we recommend that you have your lawn overseeded. We recommend overseeding in the fall because the temperatures are cooler, yet warm enough for seedlings to germinate.
It may seem counterintuitive to plant new grass in the fall rather than in the spring. However, in the spring, the soil may be too wet to receive seed, and turf seedlings will compete with weeds for real estate. However, by planting grass seed in the fall, your turf won’t have competition with weeds and will be able to get established before the first freeze.
At Majestic Lawn Care and Landscape, we’ll instruct you on how much and how often you need to irrigate your lawn. When you’re trying to grow grass from seed, you will need to water your lawn daily, 20 minutes per section (a section is determined by how far your sprinkler reaches), until the new grass emerges from the ground. You can either set your irrigation system to go off at the same time every day or you can use a store bought sprinkler to water your new lawn. Watering, by hand, with a garden hose spray gun is not effective!
If you live in Rockland County, NY or Bergen County, NJ, and your soil is compacted as well as having bare spots on your lawn, call us today at (845) 708-2988 or fill out our contact form.
Sources:.
Harper, John C. “Aeration of Turfgrass Areas,” Penn State College of Agriculture: Plant Science.
Ibid. “Lawn Management through the Seasons,” Penn State Cooperative Extension.
National Association of Landscape Professionals. “Fall Lawn Care Tips from Professional Landcare Network.”