Aeration & Overseeding Tips

Something to consider when we’re talking about aeration and overseed is the depth of the core aeration plug. Typically, I like to see anywhere from an inch and a half to two inches,  maybe two and a half max. Any deeper than that and I start to feel that the grass seed becomes buried. There is a time and place for that if we have extreme compaction and we really want to loosen the soil. Any less or any lower than that and you really want to consider, “Are we doing a true service?”  We might want to think about a slice seeding machine, like what  I’m standing on here,  has the ability to really put a lot of pressure into the cores and that’s really great for pulling consistent cores. As we start to look at some of the smaller ones, which we’ll typically use for areas that are difficult to get into that doesn’t have as much capacity. We do have to work a little harder to get those cores. Something to consider is if someone is doing an aeration with that, we do want to make sure that they’re getting a deep enough core so that it is effective. If not, we may want to use the slice seeder or what do we need to do to accomplish that deeper core. There are times where it’s not possible. Around trees where there’s a lot of tree roots, or places where there is a lot of stone, but we want to do our best. That’s going to ultimately reflect on how the final product looks.