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Last fall, however, I decided that, after nine years, the lawn could stand some updating. It was tired, I thought, and it needed a complete overhaul. I needed to overseed the lawn, to bring it back to life, and to do that properly, I needed to dethatch and aerate it.
I broke down and bought a rototiller with a dethatching and an aeration unit. When I set it up and went into the yard to start dethatching, I was amazed at what I found.
Yellowed grass clippings flew to the surface as I made each pass. I took bushel baskets of the stuff off every five 'minutes or so. I had used a lawn mower with a grass catcher on it for years, but I could see that my grass had been choking in the remains of a lot of cuttings.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” as the British say. If I worked hard to remove the thatch, I had to finish the job with a good aeration.
Aeration is the process where holes are made in the soil to open it up and permit oxygen, fertilizer and water to penetrate closer to the roots of the grass. Golf courses generally aerate in the fall, and football fields are aerated after the season is finished. I took to the yard once again.
Aeration proved a lot faster than dethatching, and when it was done, the
See LAWN, Page 28
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