Lawn Aeration and OverSeeding

When planting grass seed, the most important thing to do is to make sure the seed has good contact with the soil for successful germination. Aeration is essential practices when adding new seed to your lawn. Aeration will allow more water and nutrients into your lawn while also removing lawn thatch buildup. The result is a healthier, thicker lawn. Call Salinas Lawn & Power for these services in Chicagoland area:

• Overseeding Services
• Aeration Services

Lawn Aeration Services

Lawn aeration involves removing plugs of dirt, usually 3/4″ in diameter and three inches deep from your lawn. This allows air, water, and nutrients to penetrate deeper into your lawn to reach the roots of the grass helping it grow stronger and deeper.

The main reason to aerate a lawn is to combat soil compaction. When the soil gets too compacted there is not a proper flow of water, air, and nutrients and the lawn suffers as a result.

Aerating Your Lawn

The best time to aerate your lawn is in the growing season so your grass can properly heal. For cool season grass, ideal aeration should occur in early spring or early fall.

We recommend aerating your lawn once a year. You should aerate your lawn if:

• It gets used heavily by kids playing, pets, neighborhood cookouts, etc.
• Was established as part of a newly built home as much settling occurs
• Your lawn dries out easily
• Water puddles on lawn after rain
• Vehicles drive or park on lawn
• Thatch layer is thicker than one-half inch
• Difficulty sticking a screwdriver or pencil into soil
• Heavy clay soil
• Thin, patchy, or bare grass

Lawn Seeding Services

Unless you are starting from scratch with bare dirt, most homeowners overseed, which is done to help thicken an existing lawn. It is critical to plant the right seed, quality seed, and to get good seed-to-soil contact for successful germination.

Best Time to Seed Your Lawn

When it comes to seeding your lawn, timing is everything. If you do not time the process right, the grass will not germinate properly or remain healthy for very long. Cool season grasses do best here in the Chicagoland area.

The best time to plant cool season grasses is early fall. The cooler temperatures allow the grass seeds to germinate without drying out or burning up first.

Best Type of Grass Seed for Dupage County

Here in Illinois, we plant cool season grasses including RyeGrass and BlueGrass. Quality seed is critical when seeding your lawn. At Salinas Lawn & Power, we only use high-quality seed. Most homeowners don’t realize it, but grass seed can contain weed seeds and other crops.

Look closely at the label when purchasing for “0% weed seed” and “0% other crop”, or you will be adding hundreds of weeds and undesirable grasses to your lawn inadvertently.