Most homeowners never think of aerating their lawn. But law aeration can significantly improve the overall health of your lawn. It does this by making sure that the grass roots get plenty of oxygen and nutrients to help the grass grow strong.

Lawn aeration, also known as core aeration, is so named because it extracts ‘cores’ of grass from the lawn. Doing this allows the lawn to breath and renew itself. The normal way of doing this is to use a core aerator machine.

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You can find these machines in either gas powered form or manual push powered. In addition, they come in many different configurations, styles, and sizes. As far as price, a new gas powered core aerator can put you back about $2600 or more. Not much worth it if your lawn is very tiny or if your lawn care is handled by a professional lawn care service.

If money is an issue, you can save money by purchasing a hand core aerator. This will serve you just as well as a large one if you don’t mind manual labor, and if you have a small to medium sized lawn. If money is an issue, you can save money by purchasing a hand core aerator. This will serve you just as well as a large one if you don’t mind manual labor, and if you have a small to medium sized lawn. You can pick up a hand core aerator anywhere from well under $220, depending on the manufacturer, model, and features that it comes with. A hand core aerator is nearly always a push model. You walk behind it and push. As the hollow teeth digs into the soil, it extracts patches or plugs of grass. The teeth generally dig from two inches to four inches deep with a diameter of around a half inch in size.

A core aerator is especially useful in breaking up thatch in your yard. Thatch is that layer of plant roots, both living and dead, near the soil surface, which intertwine themselves so tightly and dense that water and nutrients are unable to make their way past it. As a result, water and fertilizer tends to pool on the grass surface and never reaches the plant roots.

Left untreated, thatch will slowly, but eventually, choke the grass in you lawn. Judicious use of a core aerator machine easily gets rid of thatch and allows your lawn to begin the process of self healing.

Another choice is to opt for a used core aerator machine. Often you’ll see ads in the paper or on the Internet where someone is moving from a home to a condo or apartment and no longer need their lawn equipment. You can pick up some pretty good deals if you keep your eyes open.

Most people, however, don’t use a core aerator machine enough to justify purchasing one outright. This is a machine that you would use, at most, twice within a year. And many people lawn care experts believe that once every three years is plenty. So, alternative choices for aerating your lawn are to rent a machine from your local home and garden center or simply hire someone to do it for you.

By: Alex Murphy

Watch this video to learn more about lawn Core Aeration:

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