Re-thinking the road to a great lawn: It needs to breathe.
As homeowners consider improving the appearance and performance of their landscaping, it’s important to think of the big picture. The long-standing ideal of deep green, thick, weed-free grass is rightfully being questioned from a number of angles. Even if the goal is still the same kind of lawn, the expense of lawn care, the water usage, the drought tolerance, the pollution, and the excess runoff all call into question how we’re meeting that goal. Increasingly homeowners and innovative lawn care providers are moving to lawn care tips that mimic that ideal lawn but with many fewer impacts. Even further outside the traditional box are climate-friendly steps that feature native plants, garden beds of many types, swales and rain gardens that hold water on site, and many others. All of these possibilities are based on and critically influenced by the soil quality that our plants have to deal with. Lawn aeration is the single action that most moves the needle toward good soil health.
Why is a healthy lawn a problem in the Midwest?
First, where did our soils come from? The compacted soil common in the Midwest is the result of fine ocean sediments settling for eons and then being exposed for millions of years when the shallow oceans receded. These clay soils have fine particles that resist the aeration process and are drained of nutrients. For this reason, rainfall doesn’t penetrate very far and surface-applied fertilizers mostly run off with the rain. This leads to rapid runoff during heavy, late spring rains in urban settings. These rains tend to wash off the fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide. This makes urban stormwater a nasty mess. The fertilizer that does remain causes rapid growth and excess mowing in the early spring followed by slow and sickly growth after the fertilizer is used up in early summer. Give most lawns a “D” for soil health.
Your lawn was an afterthought
Second, our homes were “pasted” into native landscaping that needed “improvement” such as excavation and grading. This might have meant scraping off the topsoil, stacking it in a corner, doing the foundation excavation and grading and then putting a nice layer of topsoil back over the site. While that sounds great, it almost never happened. What did happen is that the lot was graded using the clay from the excavation and that clay has a terrible effect on lawn aeration. Building lots are trending smaller every year and there’s no room to store the topsoil. It’s also valuable so the builder often sells it to increase his profit.
Soil compaction and lawn aeration
Finally, the building process is now more mechanized with loaders delivering sheetrock to the second floor and everything from skid steers to bulldozers compacting the subsoil that passes for the soil. The sod then gets rolled out over this biologically dead clay and tries to grow. It’s hard to imagine a less natural situation or a greater challenge for roots to penetrate and grow. It’s no wonder that high input costs and poor performance are the results. Missouri Organic offers a jump start at this stage. Our Soil Restoration product contains 50% Green Frontier premium compost and 50% granulated biochar. This puts a layer of great plant food and activated charcoal to hold water and nutrients right at the root level underneath the sod. Builders are increasingly realizing the benefits of taking this critical step at this stage. Soil Restoration can also be used with core aeration.
Choosing the Right Grass
So, how can we improve the situation without tilling it all up and starting over with new grass seed? Actually that’s one of the best options for a rapid change, but there are several other steps to be taken that have less impact and expense. This excellent article helps you identify the type of grass you have and the advantages and drawbacks of each common type.
Our most common types are cool-season grasses. These are typically fine-bladed fescue, kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass. Also available but less common and needing more care are warm season grasses. The common varieties are bermuda grass and zoysia. Early spring is a good time to consider how your grass meets your needs. Then you can make the decision to start over with different plants, treat the crabgrass, or simply overseed.
Why Your Lawn Needs Aeration
One of the best tools homeowners have for better lawn care is to periodically aerate lawns. The bacteria, fungi, and all the other creatures in the soil need to breathe to have good soil dynamics. Opening up the soil can be as simple as renting a diy machine called variously an aeration machine, spike aerator, plug aerator or core aerator. This machine uses hollow tines for punching holes and lifting out plugs of soil onto the surface. This leaves 1-inch by 3-4 inch long cylinders of soil all over the surface. While this is a significant disturbance to the turf, the long-term benefits are great. These plugs of soil may look like a flock of geese has been pooping all over the lawn but the cylinders of soil will melt away rapidly and don’t have to be removed. If you have sprinkler heads the small holes will wreak havoc with them so be careful at this stage.
Setting Your Lawn Up for Great Performance
This is also a great time to dethatch the lawn using a verticutter to cut back excessive thatch and get that raked off the lawn. Thatch buildup is a symptom of poor soil function. A biologically active soil will decompose the thatch. Start by using the lawnmower and mowing at the lowest setting. Early spring is a good time to do this and then overseed with your favorite grass seed. Getting the air into the soil is a good idea because new root growth is rapid and causes the subsequent grass growth to be more robust and drought resistant. Top dressing compost into the core aeration holes is even better. Compost loosens the soil and getting it deep within the core holes is perfect. Missouri Organic Recycling offers a blow-in service that quickly and efficiently “paints” a ¼ to ½ inch layer of compost over the entire lawn. This eliminates the shovel and wheelbarrow, leaving a smooth, even layer of Nature Wise compost ready to nourish the grass.
Save Money and Do It Yourself
If you’re on a budget and can do some physical labor, a broadfork is a nice, mid-level intervention. Regardless of the soil type, a broadfork aerates and slightly lifts the soil without the total destruction of the soil’s structure that a roto-tiller does. Even sandy soil can benefit from the aeration and biological jump start that a broadfork can provide. After a rain, the tines of the fork will penetrate the soil surface more easily and simply pulling back on the handles will slice and lift the soil. A broadfork is a great aeration tool to correct compaction from foot traffic, as it’s a manual treatment and easy to use on a specific area. Here’s a good blog post about broadforks.
Rip and Drip Technique
Another effective and less invasive technique that is used to transform larger acreages of heavy clay soils is called "rip and drip.” Various implements are used to cut a narrow slice into the soil (the rip). Then a rich, biologically active liquid is applied (the drip) into the slice. The liquid is variously a blend of compost, worm compost, molasses, kelp, milk, biochar powder, and other biologically active elements blended with rain water and strained so it can run through the application equipment. While the rip is fresh and open these inoculants and stimulants penetrate deeply along with fresh oxygen to create an explosion of life at depth. Because the adoption of this treatment is in its infancy, contractors who could implement it are rare. But making a simple compost extract and sprinkling it into the holes after the core aeration or broadfork work (above) would be a way to emulate it.
Starting All Over
A more radical solution is to apply compost to the yard and till it in. It has the big disadvantage of destroying the lawn, but it may be the best treatment when the lawn is no more than a thin chemically dependent, green "rug on drugs.” Tilling itself is controversial, as it destroys the internal structure that soil organisms create. Once the structure is disrupted the soil organisms feed voraciously on the once-sequestered organic matter causing a large loss and disruption of the existing structure. If, however, the soil is heavily compacted, there is not much to lose and a big benefit to gain. Tilling in 2-3 inches of compost to a depth of 6 inches is recommended in order to make a long-term difference and jump-start soil function. Compost replaces the organic matter lost to the tilling and provides ideal plant food. It also inoculates the soil with a wide range of microorganisms and starts rebuilding the soil glue that clumps the soil into crumbs and improves respiration.. Reseeding with clovers or other more eco-friendly alternatives works at this stage, but even bluegrass or fescue lawns with a functioning soil food web under them can retain rainwater, have deeper roots and be much more vigorous after the tilling.
Long-term Planning: Slow and steady works too!
The long-term play is to top-dress the lawn in the early fall every year. The rain and snow will drive the nutrients from the compost into the upper layers of the soil and help restart soil function. Over the years increased soil life will digest the thatch layer that was a persistent mulch and use it for more biological food for the lawn. The increased organic matter in the soil Is like an “all-day sucker” slowly feeding plants throughout the growing season, holding water, and building soil structure. Eventually, you’ll be able to maintain a healthy lawn with or without the climate-friendly, bird and bee-friendly extras. You’ll enjoy the lower maintenance costs, drought resilience, and pride in having navigated your way through the maze of confusing information to a great natural solution! Winter and spring are great times to add compost and rebuild soil life.
Get started today by reaching out to the experts at Missouri Organic. Call us at (816) 535-9741 or by using the contact form. We’re looking forward to helping you achieve the lawn of your dreams.
