“When we bought our home, the previous owners were very up front and honest about the terrible condition of the yard. They hadn’t had the property very long themselves – maybe six years? – but in that time, grass just wouldn’t grow for them.” Krissy is a new Marsfield resident, who wants a fun yard for her twin boys and miniature Schnauzer. “There’s a lot of clay in the soil. In some places, it’s so hard it’s practically concrete. So I went to the local lawn service basically as soon as we closed on the property and said what can be done to improve this situation?”
Lawn Aeration Services: The Solution for Clay & Compacted Soils
To understand why clay and other heavily compacted soils are such a problem for lawns, let’s begin by examining grass. Grass is a relatively simple plant – above the soil line, you see the green blades; below, grass develops extensive root systems to gather oxygen, nutrients, and moisture from the soil.
For the grass to have healthy, strong roots, those roots need to be able to spread out and move through the soil. The problem with clay and other compacted soils is that it’s just too heavy and dense for the grass to grow through. Undersized roots lead to poor grass growth. Additionally, the heavy, dense soil prevents rain water, oxygen, and any fertilizer you might apply to the lawn from penetrating below the surface to the roots. Basically, your soil is starving your grass.
To counter this problem, your Marshfield lawn aeration service will come to your property and use special equipment that introduces thousands of very small (pencil eraser size) holes into the lawn. This loosens the soil enough to allow grass roots to stretch out and grow as they need to. The many small holes also facilitate the transportation of rain water, oxygen, and other nutrients to the grass root system.
