The problems with traditional aeration:
Aerating your lawn provides a ton of benefits. It relieves compaction, and helps water and nutrients get into the root zone where it can be uptaken by the plant.
Without aeration, a lot of water and nutrients get absorbed by the thatch layer - a thick spongy layer of dead material that sits between your lawn and the soil. Traditionally aeration has been a major chore, and difficult in sourcing a lawn aerator is why most people don’t bother with the practice. It involves a couple choices:
Option 1:
- Drive to the local big box store to rent large, heavy equipment for $75-$100 per hour.
- Struggle to get it on a truck or - even worse! - in your car.
- Drive it home to unload it, and hope that it runs.
- The major but-kicking of actually operating the machine.
- Hoping you don’t run over a sprinkler head or electrical line.
- After you’re finished, speed it back to the store to avoid any unnecesary usage charges.
good luck getting this into your Prius
Option 2:
- Pay a lawn care company hundreds of dollars to do the aeration for you.
- Pray that they don’t run over any sprinkler heads or electrical lines.
So, that’s…it?
Either option is less than ideal to say the least. But for years these were the only real options for homeowners who wanted to take their lawn to the next level with aeration. I use the world ‘realistic’ because there were a few other alternatives which range from truly back breaking to largely ineffective. You can use a non-mechanical tool to aerate your lawn (pictured below) which will take approximately 70 years to complete the task if you have anything larger than 500 sq ft!
nope
Another alternative - you could use a spike aeration tool, which will take slightly less time but will not address compaction, and by some respects can actually make it worse.
nope
So for these reasons, I don’t consider any of the alternative methods of aeration to be valid options for homeowners. And I should know, I’ve tried them all!
Thankfully aeration has come a long way since your grandfather passed down his spike aeration shoes. Today we can get all the benefits of core aeration without any of the expense or aggravation of past methods, thanks to the recent introduction of liquid aeration products. The liquid products are designed to achieve the same results as typical core aeration - relieving compaction and allowing water and nutrients to get deep into the soil profile.
How Liquid Aeration Works:
An ionized liquid soil conditioner breaks up stubborn compacted soil, clay, and hardpan, while providing life-giving organic materials & soil-building humates to fast track growth.
Additionally, the best liquid aeration products contain organic matter in the form of Kelp and Humic Acids. These help generate and feed the beneficial microbes that are so vital to have. They also provide numerous trace elements and root stimulants to help trigger root growth.
A few years ago, nobody would have guessed that preferred delivery mechanism for aeration is a hose. Going forward, this is now the primary method and the only one we recommend.
Check out our liquid aeration product to get all of the benefits of core aeration with none of the hassle!