The roots of the lawn are happy about more air. That's why aerating the lawn - also known as aerating - is essential for a lush green.
In addition to fertilizing the lawn, scarifying and sanding the lawn, intensive care also includes aerating the lawn, known as 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 to play, as a path to beds and fruit trees and - equipped with garden furniture - as a seat or bed. Over time, this constant stress leads to compaction developing 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 compressed more and more and less and less air can penetrate these cavities. 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 toYou can find out more about moss in the lawn in this article.
Aerating the lawn: procedure and options
When aerating the lawn, the soil layer near the surface should be pierced 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 small ground pins out of the ground and leave tubes in the ground. The soil cylinders are then mixed with sand (see sanding the lawn) and simply spread over the lawn with a rake. For example, our Plantura Premium lawn sand is ideal for sanding. 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 collection containers. 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 aeration machines with aerators, often machines that combine scarifying and aerating.
Equipment for lawn aeration: aerator roller and co.
- For manual aeration on smaller areas: digging fork, spoons, hollow fork or hollow spoons (with or without collecting basket), rolling lawn aerator
- For airing with your feet:Lawn Aeration Shoes
- For larger areas: Electric aeration devices with aerator rollers, often combined with scarifiers
When should you aerate the lawn: in spring, summer or autumn?
The lawn should be aerated after mowing and scarifying. 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, airing can also be done more frequently.
Aerating the lawn: when?
- After scarifying and removing any scarifying residue
- Not when it's hot and dry
- Not if it's too cold and humid
- Floor must be dry
- End of May/beginning of June is ideal
- Possibly a second time in September
Aerating the lawn: advantages
- Treading on the lawn causes compaction.
- Due to compaction, not enough air gets into the topsoil and water cannot seep through easily.
- Mosses, lichens and certain weeds are encouraged by these conditions, while grasses are weakened.
- Aerating 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 this happens, the aeration was either pointless or even counterproductive if the soil and roots are even less aerated by the hole compaction. ThisThe 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 will find out when and how often you should scarify the lawn.