Hollow Tine Aeration and Spiking
Soil, particularly heavy clay soils have a tendency to compact. The soil particles get pushed closer together by heavy rainfall or traffic making it difficult for moisture and gases essential for grass development to flow freely back through the soil to the roots leading to poor root development. Poorly developed roots lead to weak grass and poor drought and disease tolerance.
Compacted ground can have serious consequences for any lawn but can be cured by simply aerating the soil. West Norfolk Lawn Care can aerate your lawn and thereby relieve compaction. We have professional aerating machines that move across the lawn surface punching metal spikes into the ground making hundreds of small holes in the lawn. The spikes can be hollow to enable them to pull a soil core out of the ground which helps remove troublesome thatch as well as aerating the ground. Lawns should be regularly aerated to ensure that the grass roots are healthy and can develop.
The Royal Horticultural Society recommend that laws are spiked every 2 to 3 years and hollow tine aerated every 3 to 4 years.
Heavy soils will become compacted and need to be hollow tine aerated to reduce the effects of the compaction in the soil and can be top dressed with a 70% sand loam mix to improve soil ventilation once every 3 – 4 years.
