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Aeration, also called core cultivation or aerifying, is an important part of any lawn maintenance regimen.

One of the keys to having a healthy and lush lawn is to aerate it when needed. Sometimes what you may think are insect, under watering or fertilizer problems, are actually happening simply because you are not aerating the soil as frequently as you should. Aerating allows grass roots to deeply penetrate the soil, helps fertilizer and organic matter get to roots, allows oxygen to reach the roots, and makes it easier for water to soak into the soil. Aerating is most effective in the fall.

Soil compaction is an enemy of a good healthy lawn, and it happens when the top 4 in. or so of topsoil become compacted to the point where nutrients, oxygen, and water are prevented from circulating around the grass roots properly. When you aerate the soil, you essentially are loosening it up to allow room for nutrients and air to circulate down into the soil. Soil compaction often becomes a problem in high-traffic areas where people and pets seem to frequent, rather than less traveled areas of the lawn.

A very cheap and inexpensive way to find out if your soil is to compacted and therefore in need of aeration, is to take a simple screwdriver out to your lawn after it has been watered and try to push the screwdriver down into the soil. If the screwdriver goes into the soil with almost no resistance at all, then there is no compaction problem that you need to be concerned about. But on the other hand, if you find it’s difficult to get the screwdriver into the soil, then you’ll need to aerate your soil as quickly as possible.

The really good news about lawn aeration is that for most yards it’s a very inexpensive thing to do. In fact, if your yard is small to medium sized, and especially if the compaction is limited to just a small section of the yard, you can even use something as simple as a spading fork to aerate your soil in those areas. All you have to do is push the tines of the fork into the soil as far as you can and then rock them back and forth. Do this throughout the area that has the compaction problem.
Another very inexpensive solution is to purchase a sod coring tool that actually removes small cores of soil and deposits them on the lawn. These plugs that are left behind contain microorganisms from deep in the ground that can even help decompose the thatch that may have developed in your lawn. So using a coring tool can be beneficial in a number of ways for your yard.

If you have a larger yard, the two methods mentioned above may simply require too much labor to perform. So the best solution in this case would be a power driven core aerater that can be rented at a tool rental or local garden store. This machine essentially does exactly what a sod coring tool does, except it automates the process. It also will leave the core plugs on your lawn, which as was mentioned can be very beneficial in themselves, or you can also rake them up and remove them if you wish. You may want to contact a professional lawn maintenance or landscaping company to handle the job for you particularly if you have a large yard or are uncomfortable operating the powered aerator.

When aerating your lawn, it’s good to go in one direction first, and then go over the entire lawn in a different direction, perpendicular to what you had just done. If you use this method to go over the entire lawn at least twice you should get great results from your aerating.

If there are spots in your yard where the grass is sparse, you can also combine seeding and aerating at the same time. In this case, you’ll need to go over the lawn perhaps six or seven times to make plenty of holes for the seed. But don’t apply the seed right away. Wait for about a month or so to let the yard heal after the aeration first.
Lawn aeration is a very important, but often overlooked part of good lawn care. But if you follow the guidelines given above you should be able to have a beautiful, healthy, green lawn in no time.