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on Sunday, March 3, 2024
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Lawn and Land – Spring Lawn Aerating and Dethatching
So you’ve survived yet another winter season and now, it’s time to take on some next level adulting in the form of pro-style spring lawn care. At least that’s the plan. But, where to start? For anyone conducting maintenance, lawn care can be a necessary but relatively minimalistic chore or a labor of love providing just the therapeutic escape you need to get away from the other responsibilities of life. Regardless of your position, the lawn awaits, and you’ve got to start somewhere. Well before the mowing begins, one thing everyone should remember is the importance of soil management. After all, that’s the foundation for that beautifully manicured lawn we’ve all seen and admired from a distance while taking that casual drive on a beautiful sunny day. Soil maintenance ensures the proper growth of your lawn from a healthy, productive bed. Of course, this is particularly important for anyone who will engage in gardening or planting and seeding practices. Let’s take a moment to dive a little deeper into a few practices that can keep your soil in top shape.
Lawn Care Fundamentals: Spring Edition
With spring being the season of regeneration, we know there’s excitement in the air for what’s to come. Bees buzzing, flowers blooming and warmer more inviting temperatures – this is all part of a shift that we’ve all become so familiar with. It also means many of us venture back out into the great outdoors, commonly beginning with our own lawns which, by now, are in dire need of attention. In general, it’s best to start lawn care preparation after the last frost has come and gone. This event is specific to where you live, so you’ll want to check weather reports and updates or consult prescriptive agricultural information sources to stay up to date on this information. To get started, there are several tasks that you can perform to resuscitate and rejuvenate your lawn including:
- De-thatching
- Aerating
- Fertilizing
- Herbicide application
- Seeding and Liming
- Watering
Arguably the two most important tasks, de-thatching and aerating are necessary for preparation, each providing an important step in the process to ensure that your soil is up to par. A closer look at each will help explain why these foundational practices impact your lawn care routine.
Detaching and De-Thatching
Over time, your lawn and soil bed accumulate a layer of dead grass, weeds, and other debris. The layer can be thicker or thinner, but either way, it’s in the way. Detaching this layer is important to ensure that any herbicides, seeds, or water you’ll apply can reach the soil to condition it for grass, flower, or crop growth. You can assess the need for detaching this layer, better known as dethatching, around the end of the winter season. It’s not always necessary, but if it is, you’ll know because your soil won’t be visible just from looking — that is, you’d have to dig through your grass to be able to see the soil. If you decide dethatching is in order, it’s ideal to remove this layer any time from the later portion of the spring through the earliest part of the summer, while your lawn is in an active state of progressive growth and the soil texture is only slightly moistened. When you’re ready to begin the process, you’ll need the right equipment to get it done. John Deere dethatching equipment is perfect for this job. You can also use John Deere lawn tractors with rake attachments to cut time and effort during dethatching tasks. Once you’ve finished, it’s likely that your lawn won’t look magazine-ready. No worries. It’s normal for things to look a little rough at first. Remember, it’s a process and we’re on the way to a polished product.
Aeration Station
After completing your dethatching process, your soil will be ready for aeration. The aeration process helps to counteract soil compaction by loosening the soil, which allows air, water, sunlight, and other additives to penetrate and permeate through the soil with fluidity for deeper root attachment. Like dethatching, aeration isn’t always necessary. However, you may consider aerating if your lawn is highly trafficked, a product of recent construction, comprised of grass blades that are particularly malleable and seem to dehydrate at an increased rate of speed, or comprised of several soil layers, which is commonly seen in turf grass. Again, like dethatching, aeration is ideal for late spring and early summer and can be performed with a variety of tools, like a John Deere aerator or tiller equipment option. After completing aeration, you’re well on your way to overseeding and fertilizing, which will get that lawn growing and produce the world class aesthetic you’re looking for.