The bain of the suburban Gardener: Dark and memorizing, eternal, everywhere, uncontrollable, barely held in check. I have a lot of it, don’t necessarily want to work on it, but in the end, devote a whole lot of time and energy on it.
Alas, I am also in Canada, and don’t even have “convienent weedkiller” (Banned in April 2009) that I can liberally spray everywhere killing all weed life in my yard (Joking aside, I appreciate Canada’s anti-chemical stance. It just makes my yard so terrible).
So this year, not only is my lawn ridiculously hard, weak, and tough to walk on, it’s also full of weeds. I mean alot of it. I spent the first 2 monthes of the year, hoping fertilizer and just cutting the lawn would do the job, but it’s been going from bad to worse.
The situation had to be dealt with, and my first ray of hope was my dad attending a wedding in the US. He slipped back some good ole DDT over the border (Which is crazy, I dont know how he would have talked his way out of it). It’s a strong weedkiller, and I once again sprayed the yard everywhere. So main issue: Weeds -> Status: Done!
My second main issue is that my grass is tough, crabby and crunchy. A truly disgusting texture on a warm sunny day. Enter the Core Aerator:
This is a handy tool. On my first visit to the nursery, the lady at the desk recommended golf shoes with metal spikes to aerate the lawn. I was intrigued, but upon further investigation, I knew this tool was a much better solution.
Check it out: my lawn is compressed to the point that oxygen, water and other nice stuffs, are unable to penetrate the thick layer of thatch covering my entire lawn. The grass then becomes this strange Zombie grass, that grows, but in an ugly fashion, without any real strength or beauty. Not very pleasant to touch or stand on. It’s also weak, and unable to fight off weeds.
Now, with this tool, you go outside, and stand on this tool till it pierces the earth up to 2.5 inches. I admit, at 200 pounds, I still had to push a little to get it in there (Just shows how bad my lawn is). The instructions state that you should wait till after a rainfall to have an easy time of it.
So, the basic premise is to go around your lawn, and apply this tool every 1.5 feet. The 2.5 inch plug of earth that comes out, is left there for compost. And the hole you placed, then becomes a “Conduit of Life” for your lifeless grass. It breaks through the thatch, and gets much needed oxygen and grass down into the soil.
I think this tool is a definite investment. It’s solid metal, will last you at least 10 years, and will keep your grass in strong shape the entire time. Yes, you could do the same thing with a screwdriver or golf shoes, but neither tool will establish a deep enough hole, nor do it in an easy manner.
There are other varieties of this aerator, but I preferred the Fiskar, because I love the colors, but more importantly, it looks like it’s been better constructed, and all my previous Fiskar tools work great. Here’s a cheaper non-Fiskar, but I skipped it:
Hound Dog Products HDP3-8 Turf Hound Aerator