How to aerate your lawn

What is aeration?
Perforation of the soil to allow air, water and nutrients to penetrate the grass roots. Aeration can be undertaken all year round.

Why do I need to aerate my lawn?
Aeration helps the roots grow deeply and produce a stronger, more vigorous lawn. The main reason for aerating is to alleviate soil compaction. Soil compaction limits the amount of nutrients and water to penetrate the roots of your lawn.

How do I aerate my lawn?
A smaller area of lawn can be aerated manually with aerating sandals (sandals with spikes that aerate the lawn as you walk) or a sturdy garden fork. Simply insert the fork into the lawn and wriggle it back and forth to fracture the soil profile. Aim for a spacing between the holes of around 8 – 10cm. In order to achieve adequate aeration, you may need to go over the area twice in a different direction each time.

You can hire specialised aerators if you have a large lawn. A spiked roller is also useful for lawn aeration for incorporating lime, gypsum, or coarse sand into the profile to improve drainage or pH.

Unlike regular aeration, where solid tines simply punch holes in the ground, core aeration removes a plug of soil from your lawn at the same time. You can read more about core aeration here.

How often should I aerate my lawn?
Different soil types require more frequent aeration. Clay soil compacts easily and should be aerated at least once a year. You can aerate a sandy lawn once a year, or once every two years. In harsher climates, aerating twice a year will encourage turf growth and health.

In areas where there is a high amount of foot traffic, pets or even cars on the lawn, compaction is a common problem. Regular aerating will be important to ensure the ground doesn’t become too hard and help the soil to breathe and the grass to spread.

When should I aerate?
The best time to aerate warm season grasses, such as soft-leaf buffalo, couch, kikuyu and zoysia is during spring and summer while they are actively growing. You can aerate at any time of the year, but if you do so in the cooler months just keep in mind the grass won’t cover over the aerated holes as it is dormant. Always try to aerate at the same time you are fertilising or performing any other major lawn care operation such as dethatching and top dressing. It is also a fantastic time for aeration after rainfall, as it will make this process much easier.

For cool season lawns, such as fescue and rye grass, the same principle applies. With proper care and a lot of water, cool season lawns can grow all year (with the exception of very cold climates) so you can aerate all year round. Again, keep in mind the absolute best times are when you fertilise or perform any other lawn care and following rainfall, so soil moisture levels are high.

Aerating is often overlooked, but its importance in allowing air, water and nutrients to get into the soil cannot be overstated.

[subscriberaccount]

This is literally the most genius idea.

[MomTheEbayer]

Great explanation for these shoes. I found some dumpster diving, but I had no idea what they were used for until my subscribers told me.

[Ryan-eukp]

Garden fork and a bit of hard work. Easy stuff. Thanks for the advice

[robertfinnan]

I bought a electric scarrifier from Aldi 6 years ago and use it every year to revovate our front lawn, followed by Victa lawn mower to pick up scarrifed grass .

[jimlassiter]

Only removal of dirt will decompress the soil.
Pushing an object into the soil will make a hole for a short period of time & really only further compresses the soil around it.
It looks & sounds good at first but that hole will close up.
And its not a big hole that the surrounding COMPRESSED soil can expand into & eventually close in a few days either so its really useless. The larger holes allow air, water & any feed/nutrients you add to truly get down past any thatch layer & into the soil by staying open longer.
The holes may even stay open for a few weeks & slowly close up as the surrounding COMPRESSED soil realizes it now has room to stretch & relax & BREATH...
Your grass roots will love it.
But a simple test will prove it.
Take a bucket, fill halfway with your favorite loam/soil & then pack it down hard with your hand.
Fill it the rest of the way to about 1" from the top & pack hard again.
That is your lawn.
Start pushing pencils into it & see how many you can do & how harder it becomes to do so.
You are just compressing the soil...
...and just remember, the soil your pushing out of the way by PUSHING A HOLE into it has nowhere to go.
Hence compression....

[fernandocajero]

This product is old news! I bought a pair of these sandals and they broke the very first day. Use the fork or some golf shoes that have spikes.

[ayomius]

you could kill someone with a high kick with those aerating shoes

[cthorno]

So there is no way to enter the fork horizontally into my lawn. It's way too hard. Looks like this will take me a while. 😔😔

[thomattli]

hi, We are a manual lawn aerator maker, we made a no clogging manual lawn aerator which can used on liquid aera .if you can take videos for your fans, we can bring sampler for free.

[MS-rsle]

CRAP they broke second time I used em! Make your own

[meeekstubbular]

This is a bad joke...Unless you're an elephant and eat like one, you can forget about this shoes.

[XRTRACING]

Poor concept! You just further compact the soil!!