Spring Aeration and Overseeding
March 14, 2017
Although many lawn specialists choose to aerate and overseed in the fall, spring can also be an ideal time for these activities. This is especially true if you’re working with warm-season grasses or a mixture of both warm and cool strains. (Cool-season grasses can be planted in spring, but they tend to take hold better in the late summer and early fall.)
You’ll want to look into spring aeration and overseeding if you have damaged areas, bare patches, or thinning due to heavy foot traffic throughout the fall and winter. This is the most effective way to get a lush, green lawn, especially if you have the right tools for the job. Enhance your seed-to-soil contact and ensure even coverage of your seed, and the results will begin to show within a few short weeks
Spring Aeration
When done annually (or twice annually), a thorough aeration will allow the lawn to open for greater absorption of water, oxygen and fertilizer. Exmark commercial-grade lawn aerators make it easy to accomplish these results quickly, tackling up to two acres per hour. Using some of the same powerful materials that make our lawn mowers so effective, Exmark lawn aerators are designed to offer high rates of maneuverability and operation controls that don’t require a lengthy training period.
You can choose between the walk-behind aerator, which reaches speeds of up to 4 miles per hour, or a stand-on aerator, which almost doubles the speed and offers a suspended platform for a smoother ride. Both of these options take advantage of down-pressure that pulls the plugs faster and more efficiently, allowing you to cover as much ground as possible in a short period of time.
Regardless of whether you choose to perform aeration in the fall or the spring, you and your customers will be pleased at the efficiency and the results.
Spring Overseeding
Once the aeration is complete, overseeding will allow you to boost the lawn’s growth and appearance. This should be done at a time when sunshine and rain are at their peak, and also after the chance of frost has passed.
In order to effectively deliver the seed to the entire lawn area, it’s important to rely on commercial-grade seeders that can do the job both quickly and easily. For maximum efficiency, you can choose a slicer seeder that does the job of dethatching, verticutting and overseeding in one pass. You can also choose a lawn spreader sprayer, which offers full and even seeding coverage without the additional cutting provided by a slicer. Both of these machines have high-capacity hoppers that allow you to cover more area at a time, and also provide Exmark’s signature lean-to-steer technology.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re new to lawn care and want to invest in equipment that will last, or if you’ve been aerating and seeding your whole career and know what you expect out of your tools. With a full fleet of aeration and overseeding machines for your upcoming spring season, Exmark has you covered.