if you'd like to learn about a simple process to help you get along like this then keep watching your neighbors probably aren't doing it which gives you the advantage it helps improve water retention nutrient availability and also helps stimulate microbial activity all of which lead to greener grass let's get started so the simple process that has all these benefits for your grass is called aerating your lawn now core aeration is a mechanical process that involves removing small plugs from the soil that helps to open up the lawn if your lawn happens to be compacted core
aeration is a great idea since all the voids that we're creating from this process gives the existing lawn a place to relax into it's a great way to relieve compaction now to core area to your lawn you need a specialized piece of equipment that's called a you guessed it a core aerator now you can get these usually at your local equipment rental or at one of the big box stores now once you get your core aerator home i don't want you to take it out and fire it up and get out there and start coordinating
right away there's four tips i want to share with you that are gonna help you get the best result number one if possible water your lawn the day before you plan to core aerate this is gonna soften the soil allowing the tines to penetrate deeper number two mark any irrigation heads or anything else that you don't want to run over with the core aerator remember this is a pretty heavy piece of equipment that can easily damage things in your lawn if you're not careful number three we don't know where this core aerator has been so
be sure to rinse the tines off before you put it on your lawn this is going to help prevent spreading disease and weeds into your lawn and number four lawn aeration is physically demanding so be sure to wear the proper shoes and gloves for safety with all the foundational knowledge and tips out of the way let's get to the process of actually aerating the lawn now you can do your passes in a straight line back and forth as you see me doing here but constantly turning the aerator this way isn't much fun it takes more
effort and it slows you down the method i prefer is to make passes in overlapping ovals around the lawn this method allows you to keep the aerator moving the entire time as you go fast and turn left you'll slightly overlap on each pass as you cover the entire lawn this helps reduce the number of times you have to stop helping you get through the process faster [Music] now when it comes to aerating any sloped sections of your lawn there's a couple of things you're going to want to keep in mind obviously you want to avoid
running the aerator in any orientation that might cause you to lose control over it causing it to tip over i find that running the aerator in a diagonal pattern or very slowly working up and down the slope allows you to get a good result while maintaining good control of the machine with that out of the way let's actually before we get to that one quick thing to pick up cores or not to pick up cores that often is the question now if your cores look like this where they are largely sandy in nature i don't
see a ton of reason to pick them up they break down really quickly once they dry out and it's free organic material that goes back into the soil if you have more of a clay soil where the cores tend to get harder as they dry out that might be a situation where you might want to pick them up just like most things in life the best answer is it depends with the lawn aerated now is a great time to fertilize or add biostimulants like essential gene these products need to get into the soil to work
so applying them after aeration helps speed up the process if you're planning the top dress now would also be a great time since aeration helps the top dressing integrate faster with the existing soil well there you have it some easy tips and tricks on how to get a great result when aerating your lawn if you'd like to see how aerating fits into a bigger process for leveling and smoothing out a lawn to get that golf horse lawn look i have a video on the screen here for you to watch next thank you so much for
watching i'll see you in the next video
