How Often Should I Mow And Aerate My Lawn?
To keep your lawns looking lush, green and healthy, it's important to frequently mow and aerate your lawns. The ideal time to do this is in the beginning of spring to stimulate growth during the growing season, in the summer for heat-stressed lawns, and in the fall to prepare your lawn for dormancy during the winter.
How Often Should I Mow
Dealing with cool season grass, like what grows here in New Jersey, mowing should take place on a weekly basis. The mowing seasons typical begins in mid-late April and concludes in mid-late November. This consists of typically a 32 week long cutting season for your property.
Weekly lawn maintence will allow for greener, healthier, and an overall stronger lawn. Taking care of the largest living living organism on your property is vital to obtain the curb appeal everyone wants. Weekly mowing also allows for even growing of your lawn. Also, mowing every 7-10 days recycles the nutrients in your lawn to help stimulate growth. Note that you never want to cut more than 1/3 of the overall height of your grass. This can lead to damaging roots.
Lawns are faced with unpredictable weather, pests, and diseases on a regular basis. A lawn that is regularly maintained will allow for quicker recovery when overcoming these obstacles. Your lawn is the first thing you see when you come to someone’s house, so might as well make it look amazing, be healthy, and clean cut with weekly mowing.
How Often Should I Aerate
Aeration is the single best thing you can do for the overall healthy, beauty, and longevity of your lawn. Maintence and care of anything, especially your lawn is vital to having the best looking property in your neighborhood.
Aeration is ideally taken place in the Spring and/or Fall seasons here in New Jersey. Aerating in the peak growing seasons, Spring and Fall, will allow your lawn to recovery quickly. Aeration can work wonders on your lawn as long as it it timed correctly. Aerating your lawn once a year is optimal for your lawn.
The Aeration Process
Mowing
Mowing lawns is the first step to aeration. This makes your lawn easier to manage and easier to spot thatch buildup for removal. Make sure to mow your lawn a week or more before your aeration date.
Dethatch
Thatch is the buildup of dead organic matter on your soil. While a little bit of thatch may be beneficial since it restores the soil with nutrients, if the layer of thatch becomes too thick, even by ¼ inch, it may block the roots of plants from getting adequate moisture, oxygen, or water.
Water
Water your plants thoroughly a couple days before you aerate it. Aerating lawns works best when the soil is a little moist.
Keep Track Of Landscape Accessories
Before you start to aerate your lawn, locate all garden equipment like sprinklers, lights, and other pop ups so that you do not damage them during the process.
Aerate
You can now actually aerate your lawn. You can do this manually, or by using an automated machine. Many people that have large lawns also choose to get it done with professional help.
Fertilize
The time after aerating lawns is the best for fertilizing your soil. As soil cores are brought to the surface and the soil is made less compact, the roots are exposed and have better chances of coming in contact with fertilizers. This time is also perfect for over-seeding. This can resolve issues of bald patches on your lawn.
Benefits
Improves Lawn Health
Your lawn will look fuller due to better over-seeding, soil decompaction, preventing runoff , and removing excess thatch buildup. Aeration allows for water, minerals, oxygen, and sunlight to penetrate to the root layer of the grass. This allows the grass roots to dig deeper into the ground, the lawn to germinate more growth, as well as be thicker and healthier than before the process was started. The entire process, if done correctly, also prevents growth of weeds and focuses nutrients on the health of grass. It allows your lawn to “breathe”.
Prevents Heat-Stress
Aeration can save your lawn during the hot months during which grass can get stressed by excess heat. Aeration can provide a long-term cooling and calming effect.
Reverses Soil Compaction
This allows better uptake of water, nutrients, and oxygen, which your lawn, like any other living organism, requires plenty of.
PH Control
Fertilizing after you mow and aerate your lawns also helps in balancing the pH of soil, which is an important factor affecting plant growth.
Final Words
If you still have questions about how to mow and aerate your lawns, look no further than Golden Wolf Landscape & Design LLC. Our professionally trained staff knows everything about mowing and aerating lawns in the perfect way. So, you can safely leave it to us!
If you are not currently a client of Golden Wolf Landscape & Design LLC, would love to add you to our growing family of customers. Our focus is on residential and commercial properties in New Jersey. Our goal is to provide the best experience and value for each and every once of our customers. Contact us at (908) 578-1179 . You can fill out a request for form for a quote under our “Contact Us” tab. We are looking forward to hearing from you!