What does it mean when we talk about various things to do with lawn care?
Below you will find some information about common terms.
Aeration
Scarification
Hollow Tine
Solid Tine
Aeration
Aeration – or aerating a lawn means to create a series of spaced holes in a lawn in order to enable nutrients, air and moisture to get right to the root zone and reduce sub-surface thatch as well as help to alleviate compaction within a lawn – all are reasons for a lawn to look poor.
Lawn Scarification
Lawn scarification is the process of raking the lawn. Typically you might use a metal spring rake to rake out the brown bits (known as thatch), but a far easier process is to use a lawn scarifier. These machines will rake the lawn using power (often engine driven) and rake out the thatch (and some moss). The benefits are that this thatch layer is now reduced and is not clogging up the lawn surface as much, this allows rain air and nutrients to reach the soil surface.
Hollow Tine
Hollow Tine aeration is the process of using a machine called a lawn aerator fitted with hollow tines. The machine is driven over the lawn and the metal tines are pushed a few inches into the soil. The hollow nature of each tine then pulls out the core of soil, leaving a hole in the lawn about a half inch wide and 1 to 2 inches deep.
Solid Tine
Solid Tine aeration is the process of creating holes in the lawn using an aerator machine. It is much like using your garden fork to push holes into the ground. This helps to a degree letting air rain and nutrients get in, but longer term it increases lawn compaction. So short term is great, but you should mix up this process every second or 3rd year with a hollow tine aeration.
