“No one ever accused me of having a green thumb,” Owen said. “And maybe I just kind of accepted that as my destiny. Our lawn looked like Mars. Bare rocky soil with a few sad little patches of grass here and there. And some weeds.”
Our Health & Happiness Is Impacted by Our Living Environment
“So I wound up going to therapy for a few things,” the Needham homeowner said. “And one of the things I learned is that the way we take care of the spaces we live in is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. Thinking my lawn was hopeless and not worth bothering with said something about my own self-perception.”
Determined to change his feelings, Owen talked with his local lawn service about improving the yard. “The guy is on my property maybe five minutes, and he said “I can tell you one issue right away – you’ve got very compacted soil. This stuff is like concrete!”
“The fix for heavily compacted soil turns out to be lawn aeration,” Owen explained. “The Needham lawn aeration service guys show up with their truck, they unload the machine, and they go all over the yard softening and loosening the ground.”
After lawn aeration, it’s easier for grass to grow. This is because the looser soil allows for the roots to spread out. Additionally the thousands of small pencil-eraser size holes introduced into the lawn make it much easier for sunlight, oxygen, rain water and nutrients to penetrate beneath the surface of the soil to reach the grass’ root system.
“So we did the lawn aeration thing. And also fertilizing, because there was like zero nutrition in the soil here. After that came power seeding, where they used special grass seed inserted directly into the ground to give me absolutely amazing grass very quickly. I was shocked at how quickly the lawn transformed from oh no to hello!”
“When you come home at the end of a long work day, and you’re pulling into your driveway, and the house looks nice and the yard looks nice, it’s a good feeling,” Owen concluded. “And I think we can all use a little more of that.”
