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Tips for Aerating and Verticutting Your Lawn

Try Verticutting Your Lawn

Fall is the best time to fertilize, aerate or verticut, and seed your lawn. In fact, everything you do to improve the health of your lawn in the three months leading up to winter is proactive, meaning it will wildly improve your lawn for next spring!

TIP: For a great lawn in spring, fall is the time to act!

When it comes to verticutting and seeding, many of our lawn care customers have questions. When is the best time to verticut and seed? Should I aerate or verticut when I seed? What’s the difference between aeration and verticutting? And the list goes on.

To help you decide whether to seed, when to seed, whether to aerate or verticut, what kind of fertilizer to use and more, the lawn care experts at Custom Lawn and Landscape put together these tips.

What’s the Difference between Aerating and Verticutting?

Aerating and verticutting are similar in that both are ways to improve your lawn in some way. However, they differ in some significant ways. Read on to see when it makes sense to aerate and when it makes sense to verticut your lawn.

How To Know If Your Lawn Needs Aerating

Aerating removes small cores of dirt from your lawn. A specialized machine digs down into your lawn and pulls up small cork-sized pieces of dirt. This loosens the soil and allows oxygen, water, and nutrients to get to the roots below.

Plus, the cores contain microorganisms that will break down the thatch into healthy organic matter. Aerating creates looser soil, stronger root structure, and better results when overseeding.

TIP: Aerate your lawn at least once a year

How Often and When To Aerate Your Lawn

If you are going to overseed your lawn, it’s best to plan on doing it early in the season, like in September, to give the seed the maximum amount of time to germinate. Seed germination needs three things – soil contact, water, and warmth.

If you are simply overseeding your lawn to make it a little thicker, but overall it’s in pretty decent condition, aeration is the preferred method. Try to overseed your yard within a day or so after your aeration while the holes are still open and before the cores start to break down.

Related Reads: 6 Reasons to Leave Lawn Aeration to the Professionals

When Do You Verticut Your Lawn

If your lawn is thin, has bare spots or you’d like to kill out the existing lawn because it is the wrong kind of grass or is so full of weeds it would be better to start over, verticutting is recommended. Verticutting and power raking are words that are sometimes used interchangeably for doing the same thing.

TIP: Verticutting is better for bare and thin lawns

Verticutting is done by a machine that cuts thin rows into your grass rather than removing plugs, like aeration. Verticutters loosen the topsoil so that seed will have better contact with the soil for germination.

Verticutting helps remove the layer of thatch that naturally builds up from mowing and leaf litter. Because it is more aggressive, it is recommended for lawns that are in need of more serious repair or for replacing a lawn altogether.

Want to know how to make your lawn the best it’s been in years? Check out Custom’s FREE guide that gives you seeding secrets from the professionals:

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    2024 Update:
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    2022 REVIEW:
    I have been searching for a good company to become my go-to irrigation folks and I've 100% found it in Custom Lawn & Landscape. Setting up my appointment through Billy was super easy and he listened to my concerns about a previous experience with another company. He assured me that I would get the best by choosing CL&L.
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    Seth at Custom Lawn does an awesome job for us! Thank you Seth!
    We've used Custom Lawn for lawn care and aeration for about five years with great results. It's great having the same technician year round. We just had them install a sprinkler system (in a yard filled with large rocks)--Tim, Jason and the rest of the crew were great. After the install the aeration crew filled in the voids (because of the rock removal) with high-quality top soil. We're were pleased with their service as always, and will continue recommending them .

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    Seth did a great job starting my yard's spring cleanup & mowing
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    Seth has been providing the fertilizer treatments for my lawn for several years now. The lawn looks great - deep green and full. He is careful with the treatments to minimize overspray. He always lets me know a day in advance when he is coming.
    Thank you, Seth, for doing such a great job for us!
    I have been using Custom Lawn and Landscape for 2 years. Seth, my technician, has done a great job bringing my lawn back to life. Custom's prices are reasonable and the service is great.
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    Thanks Seth!
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