Fall Is the Best Time To Aerate and Seed Your Lawn
As the days become shorter, so does our time to enjoy our lawn and gardens. It’s also the right time to prepare your lawn for the long, cold winter ahead. Let’s take a look at why now is the perfect time to aerate and seed your lawn.
What Makes Fall the Ideal Time?
For cool season grasses, fall is the best time for both. You not only give it vital nutrients it needs, but you also help the grass get ready for winter. Aeration holes allow oxygen, water, and nutrients from the soil to go deep into the grass roots. It also allows for the seed to penetrate deeper in to the roots of your lawn.
Doing this early in the fall allows the seed to begin to grow before the weather gets cold.
Aeration
There are many tools to help you aerate your lawn fast. Try a push spike aerator, or one that you tow behind your lawn mower. How about using a rake, or spikes that you can put on the bottom of your shoes? Your local home improvement store even rents a gas powered one if you have a large lawn to do.
Aeration involves poking holes all over the lawn so that rain water, or the sprinkler, can go down deep in to the soil. It’s especially helpful for compacted lawns.
When you are ready to aerate your lawn, it’s best to do it after a rain. Or, turn the sprinklers on for a bit. The water will help break up the turf better. Also, clear your lawn of leaves, grass clippings, and debris.
Over Seeding
Within a day or two after you have aerated your lawn, put down some grass seed. Use a manual broadcast spreader, or one that you can tow behind your lawn tractor to make it easy.
Be sure to water your lawn after you apply the seed so it has the best chance to sprout and grow before winter. The new growth will have plenty of time to take root and fill in bare spots.
Being able to aerate and seed your lawn now will give it the best chance it has at being healthier, thicker, and greener come spring. And you can cross it off your Fall Home Maintenance Checklist.
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