Aerating in Connah's Quay
Grass roots want air and water in the soil, and a lawn that has been walked on for years has neither. The ground goes hard, rain sits on top of it, and the grass thins out in exactly the places you use most.
Best timeSeptember to October
I go over the lawn with a hollow-tine aerator, which pulls small plugs of soil out all the way across and leaves the holes behind. Air, water and anything you put down can get into the ground again, and the roots have somewhere to go.
Hollow tines rather than spikes. Driving a solid spike into compacted ground pushes the soil sideways and packs it harder either side of the hole, which is the opposite of the point. Taking a core out actually makes room.
Autumn is the window. The ground has softened after the summer without being waterlogged, so the tines go in cleanly and come out with a core rather than a smear, and there is still enough growth left in the year to close the holes over.
Thank you so much for doing this for us, we are made up, so happy with the service.
Questions people ask
- How do I know if my lawn needs it?
- Puddles that sit after rain, ground you cannot push a screwdriver into in summer, and thin worn grass along the route everybody takes across the garden. Any of those is compaction.
- What is wrong with just spiking it?
- Spiking compresses the soil around each hole rather than removing any, so on the heavy ground that needs aerating most it makes the compaction worse. Hollow tines take a core out and leave a genuine space.
- How long before it looks normal again?
- A few days for the cores, two or three weeks for the holes to close over in an autumn month. It is a far gentler thing to do to a lawn than scarifying.
- How often should it be done?
- Every year or two on clay or a lawn that gets used hard, less on light ground. It is not something a lawn needs every autumn as a matter of course.