If you’ve noticed that your plants aren’t growing well and seen how compact your soil is, it’s best to have it aerated. But that’s not the only criteria for having your lawn get aerated.
Too much thatch may dry the soil out, and aerations should be considered as an option to this issue. Thatching happens when there’s too much layers of organic dead roots or shoots that spurt on the soil. How do you know if it’s a bad thatch? If you get to dig five inches below and see a root thatch worth half an inch or more, then that’s bad news. Aeration will do the trick.
Lawns built on clay soils will have need of aeration because they’re too squeezed together. When soils perform poorly, it can’t shoot out healthy nutrients to the plants. Aeration allows the yard to breathe and increase its nutrient take. Water passes through the soil and will be absorbed better by the roots.
Garden experts say lawn aeration is important and should be carried out at least twice a year. Ideal months to carry out the task are on summer and winter where the grass spurt out of the ground on the former and remain idle on the latter.
That means you should prepare your budget to have a professional aerate your yard. Or you could opt to do it yourself. Either way, you have to know the lawn aeration cost.
When does lawn aeration usually carried out?
It is generally done throughout the summer to help water penetrate while gardening. Not as typical as spiking, slitting or slit tinning, it calls for adding blade-like teeth in the soil. It’s more commonly carried out throughout the fall and winter months. This kind of aeration calls for the removal of dirt from the lawn.
This is done by inserting hollow pipes into the dirt, by which the soil passes through after every attachment. It’s very useful for lawns with a straw problem or for integrating top dressing into the dirt profile.
Advantages of aerating your lawn
A healthy lawn would mean the following:
- breathability for the lawn
- Nutrients absorption
- Proper distribution of water channels
- Healthy growth of plants
How much is it to aerate your lawn?
The lawn aeration price highly depends on the size of your turf. The choice of having a motorized or manual aerator also affects the cost to aerate lawn. The equipment can be rented in home stores if you want to go DIY or would come with your hired professional.
- According to Home Advisor, the lowest cost homeowners have paid is $50 and the maximum at $375. Combining aeration and fertilization of the soil would make things easier and would, therefore, cost about $40. The average lawn aeration cost is $175 where people pay for $0.10 to $0.35 per square feet. For a DYI project, homeowners pay $65 to $250 a day for aerator rentals.
- Keyman Lawn Care. At Keyman’s, the cost to aerate lawn per 1,000 square feet will not reach $100. But the typical aeration job averages of 5,000 square feet and costs around $110. Discounts of $20 are applied when you refer a customer to them. If it’s your first service, a $15 off would be marked.
- Homewyse broke down that the cost to aerate a 500 square feet lawn happens between $55 and $110. Basic lawn aeration labor, which deals with aerating in favorable site conditions, marking protected areas and items, aerate lawn with pattern of four holes and the inclusion of planning, equipment and material acquisition, area preparation and protection, setup and cleanup cost $13 as the lowest and $31 as the max. Meanwhile, lawn aeration equipment allowance will get you at $22.50 to $33.75.
- Thumbtack is where a group of professionals where they market their services online for the general public. Here are the quotes received from the site.
Small lawns
If you have a lawn measuring less than 1,000 sq. ft, aerating your residential front yard’s lawn would cost $55, while the backyard would have it lesser for $50. Aerating your sideways would cost you $60.
Either you have a multi-unit building, office space or commercial property, the lawn aeration price starts at $60. However, if they found out that you have not aerated your lawn for more than two years, the price seems to drop at $45.
Medium-sized lawns
For a medium-sized lawn, whether it is residential or commercial would start at $75 on your front yard. The backyard gets you to pay $5 less while the side lawns would have you pay $80. Mid-size lawns are sized about 1,000 to 5,000 sq. ft. An un-aerated lawn of two years or more would cost less.
Large lawns
Lawns ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 sq. ft. would price you at $100 for the front yard, $90 for the backyard and $105 for the side yards.
Wide lawns
Lawn aeration cost for lawns of more than 10,000 sq. ft. starts at $125and would jack up to $130 in some cases.
Tips for lowering the costs
It is expected that you should pay higher lawn aeration price range for a licensed, professional lawn aerator company or individual and for complex lawns or rush projects. Here are tips to lower your costs:
- Combine fertilization and lawn aeration for that easy digging.
- Minimize other services for your lawn.
- Try doing it yourself.
- Borrow a lawn aerator from a friend or neighbor. Or better yet, hire them!
- Keep track of the perfect time on when to aerate your lawn.
- Be mindful of the discounts in your local shops.
Conclusion
The main reason that aeration is carried out is to allow air and water in the land profile as this helps relieve compaction. All lands have problems with compaction to a point, with heavy clay lands that become wet being more susceptible to compaction. Compaction is caused when the atmosphere is displaced from the land by surface compaction which then breaks down the soil structure leading to low quality growing conditions.
When compaction happens as well as the air is displaced this prevents drainage, supports shallow rooted grasses like annual meadow grass. If lawns are greatly used there is an excellent opportunity they’ll become compacted and will need some form of aeration program.