What You Need to Know About Aeration, Overseeding, and Sodding

Your Furlong, PA lawn has taken a beating this summer with hot days and little rain. Plus, you may have had backyard parties or kids playing soccer on your turfgrass that led to compacted soil.

Fall is the best time to aerate and overseed your lawn. If you’re living in a new home or your yard has more weeds than turf, then you may prefer sod instead of overseeding.

What Is Aeration, Overseeding, and Sodding Grass?

You first need to know about each lawn service before going into their benefits. Here is a breakdown of the three fall lawn services that Jamison Lawn Care provides

Aeration – When we aerate your lawn, we use an aerator that will pull small plugs of soil out of the ground. Aeration relieves soil compaction and allows the earth to breathe.
Overseeding – We’ll overseed your yard after we aerate it. Overseeding covers any bare or thin areas with grass seed.
Sodding – We put down sod on properties where the customer wants an instant lawn. We remove the existing grass and rake the soil, preparing it for sod.

Then we’ll lay out the sod like carpeting. We recommend you stay off a newly sodded lawn for three weeks and make sure to regularly water it, so turf roots adhere to the soil.

Each fall lawn care service enhances the curb appeal of your Buckingham Township property and promotes soil and turf health.

5 Benefits of Aeration

You only need to aerate your lawn once every two years unless you have heavy clay soil, park your cars in your yard, or have a lot of foot traffic. Aeration is similar to a farmer tilling their fields.

Here are five benefits of core aeration:

Aeration opens up the soil to receive oxygen, light, and moisture. It also allows carbon dioxide to be released.
Aeration helps when overseeding your lawn because our seeder puts down turfgrass seeds deep into the soil.
Aeration dethatches your lawn. It’s normal to have some thatch in your turfgrass. However, if thatch measures more than a half-inch, your yard will need dethatching. Aeration automatically dethatches your lawn.
Aeration relieves soil compaction by opening up the ground to absorb water and air.
Topdressing and soil amendments absorb quickly into the soil after aeration.

4 Reasons Why You Need to Overseed Your Lawn

Typically, core aeration and overseeding go hand-in-hand as fall lawn services because the soil is ready for seed.

Here are four reasons to overseed your Hatboro yard:

You have areas where the turfgrass has thinned or primarily has weeds.
You’re renovating your lawn and growing turfgrass from scratch.
You want to stay on budget, and seed is less expensive than sodding grass.
The fall is the best time to seed your lawn to establish it before next summer’s heat.

What Are the Advantages of Sod?

Sod grass grows in fields. It hardly has any weeds and grows in full sun—so sod doesn’t tolerate shade well. When you order sod for your Jamison lawn, it’ll come to your property cut in rows to put down on bare soil.

You need to regularly water your sod to encourage roots to attach to the soil underneath. Here are four advantages of sod:

It’s an instantly green lawn
It’s weed-free
It’s simple to put down on your yard
It’s low-maintenance.

If your Jamison lawn looks tired, it’s time to schedule your aeration, overseeding, and sod appointments with Jamison Lawn Care. Call us today at 267-621-4747 or fill out our contact form.

Sources:

LoveYourLandscape.org, To Seed or Sod.

**Plant of the Month: Switchgrass (*Panicum virgatum***)

If you want flowing ornamental grasses in your Chalfont, PA landscape, you can’t go wrong with switchgrass, a low-maintenance perennial grass.

This prairie grass stands upright with delicate, feathery flowers that bloom from July through September. Seedheads appear in the fall that attracts various birds.

Switchgrass comes from the Midwest prairies and eastern U.S savannas. It has a high tolerance for growing in different areas.

Switchgrass adds movement, color, and wildlife to your outdoor space.

Switchgrass is a perennial, warm season grass, meaning it’ll die back in the winter. However, the plant’s rhizome (taproot) will stay alive for the next season.

Switchgrass grows between 4’ to 8’ tall. Mulch around your switchgrass plants to regulate soil temperatures, reduce weeds, and keep moisture in the soil.

Four popular switchgrass varieties add color, drama, and movement to your landscape from summer through fall:

Cloud Nine and North Wind – These varieties grow up to 6’ tall and make great backdrops to a flowerbed or stand-alone plant with a rock.
Dallas Blues – This variety is the tallest of all four, growing 6’ to 8’ tall. Dallas Blues comes with bluish-green leaves that turn into purple foliage. This variety also has seedheads that are 2” long. Learn more: Why Your Garden Beds and Landscape Need Mulch
Heavy Metal – This switchgrass variety stands upright with gray-blue blades. Heavy Metal fades to lime-green with tan seedheads in the fall. Heavy Metal grows 5’ to 6’ tall at maturity.
Shenandoah – This switchgrass plant is the smallest of the four popular varieties. It grows 2’ to 4’ at maturity. It blooms with dusty red to purplish flowers.

If you want to add one of these switchgrass varieties to your Doylestown or Horsham landscape, call us at 267-621-4747 or fill out our contact form.

Jamison Lawn Care serves homeowners and commercial properties in Buckingham and Warwick Townships, including these Pennsylvania towns: Chalfont, Doylestown, Furlong, Hatboro, Horsham, Jamison, Southampton, Warminster, Warrington, and Warwick.

Sources:

GardeningKnowHow.com, Growing Switchgrass – How to Plant Switchgrass.

HighCountryGardens.com, Heavy Metal Blue Switchgrass.