Don’t wait—learn when to aerate
Aerating your lawn is the process of poking holes in your yard to allow water, oxygen, and nutrients to reach the grass’s roots.
Different types of grasses are best aerated at different times, but as a general rule of thumb, early fall is a good time to aerate.
Avoid aerating your lawn during its dormant period; aim to aerate during peak grass growth.
How often you aerate depends on soil type, with denser soils like clay needing more frequent aeration.
Most average lawns can be aerated about once every two to three years.
Do you know when to aerate your lawn? Or even what aerating is? If you’ve never heard of aerating your lawn before, it might sound strange at first. Poking holes in your yard to help the grass grow thicker and stronger? Yes, it actually works!
But timing is everything when it comes to aerating your lawn. In fact, aerating at the wrong time can actually stress your grass out more and cause it to look even patchier and weaker—the exact opposite of what you’re going for.
And not all grass and soil types are created equal when it comes to figuring out that timing. Fortunately, you don’t need to become the grass whisperer to determine just the right moment. Read on to learn the signs that show up when it’s time to aerate your lawn and general seasonal guidelines.
Let’s start with a quick primer on why aeration works—because, again, the practice might seem bizarre without some context. Why does your yard benefit from being repeatedly stabbed?
The answer is soil compaction. Over time, soil has a tendency to harden as the air is squeezed out of it from foot traffic and other forms of pressure. Grass and other types of plants have a much harder time extending their roots down into compacted soil, meaning they’re deprived of the air, water, and nutrients they need to thrive.
Lawn aeration shakes things up by loosening the soil and giving your grass’s roots more access to the good stuff. Now let’s move on to timing.
As mentioned above, different types of grass and soil do best with different aeration timings—though as a very general guideline, early fall is usually a safe time to do it.
The main goal is to avoid aerating your lawn during the grass’s dormancy period. Instead, you’ll want to aerate while it’s in a peak growth stage. That way, it can quickly recover and shoot its roots down into the now-loosened ground.
But certain types of warm-season grasses reach peak growth a little earlier than early autumn, which means they should be aerated in late spring or early summer. However, aerating should never be done in the winter or early spring.
Along with timing, there’s also frequency to consider. As a general guideline, most lawns that aren’t exhibiting any problem signs (we’ll get to those in just a minute) can be aerated every two to three years. However, certain types of soil, like clay, are much more prone to compaction and can thus benefit from being aerated more often.
Now that we’ve gotten the general guidelines down, let’s get specific. Here are some signs your lawn might be due for aeration during its next peak growth period.
Weak, thin, patchy grass is likely grass that isn’t getting the nutrients and oxygen it needs to grow well. Aerating your lawn may help the roots get what they need to grow a denser crop of grass.
If parts of your lawn are lush and green, but others are yellow and brown, this could be a sign that parts of the soil are more compacted than others. (Psst: You can choose to aerate specific problem areas of your lawn rather than aerating the whole yard.)
Whether it’s from a rain cloud or a sprinkler, if water simply pools up on your lawn’s surface and won’t penetrate the soil below, that’s a clear sign that the earth may be compacted—and, of course, your grass’s roots aren’t getting access to what water they need.
Thatch is the layer of roots, stems, shoots, and other plant material, both living and dead, that build up between the surface of the soil and the green grass growing up top. A little bit of thatch—about an inch or so—can be a good thing, but too much can trap moisture and cause rot or, you guessed it, keep the grass’s roots from getting the nutrients they need.
Soil compaction is a function of pressure—and whether they’re from kids, adults, or even pets, footsteps are a form of pressure. Every time someone steps on the lawn, they squeeze a bit of air out of the soil below, which is why areas with heavy foot traffic may benefit from aeration.
If you’re watering, fertilizing, and trimming your grass but the growth is still slow or non-existent, aeration may be the key to unlocking a thriving yard.
If you try to press a pencil into your soil and fail, it’s probably time to aerate your lawn.
Now that you know it needs it, you may be wondering how to aerate your lawn.
Fortunately, aerating a lawn is a pretty simple process, and there are plenty of affordable manual aerators on the market to choose from. Once you choose one, you simply work systematically back and forth across the lawn twice, poking holes at even intervals. (It’s best to work with a lawn that’s been well trimmed and watered within a day or two so that the soil is as loose, moist, and accessible as possible to start.)
You can save time and money by aerating your lawn yourself. Or, if you’d rather skip the dirty work, your local lawn aeration pro can help you get your soil nice and loose—and ready for a lush, green crop of grass.
While the specific best timing to aerate your lawn depends on the type of grass that’s growing on it, most grass types do best when aerated in the early fall—though warm-season grasses might be better suited to aeration in late spring or early summer. The idea is to aerate your lawn during its peak growth period, which gives the grass the best chance at recovering from the disturbance and digging its roots down deep into the newly loosened soil.
Yes! Aerating your lawn during its dormancy period—usually over winter and early spring—can cause a disturbance that the grass may not easily recover from. Instead, you should aerate your lawn during its peak growth period, usually in the late summer or early fall (though with some variation based on specific grass type).
Signs your lawn is in need of aeration include patchy or thinning grass, water pooling on top of the soil, a buildup of thatch (the mix of living and dead roots, shoots, stems, and other plant material between the green grass and the soil surface), discolored areas, and more. These are all signs of soil compaction, which lawn aeration works to reverse.
