Lawn coring is the process of aerating our lawns with a specially designed machine built for the purpose. Lawn coring is most usually done on compacted lawn soils so as to allow more oxygen into the root zone of the turf for improved ongoing lawn health. Lawn coring can also be undertaken as a means to improve or adjust lawn soils, and lawn coring can be done to help de-thatch some lawn types like Buffalo grass.
Like all other lawn repairs, lawn coring would best be done in Spring through to early Autumn. Those of us who live in the warmer parts of Australia may also get away with lawn coring in Winter without too many troubles, though the immediate lawn improvement that one could normally expect from this process may be delayed until Spring.
Lawn coring is most often undertaken by a contractor, though a homeowner should be able to hire the machine for themselves to use also.
Considerations Before Lawn Coring
Obviously and firstly is that if we have installed a reticulation watering system for our lawns, then all pop-up sprinklers should be marked out clearly. Failure to do this and if we run over a sprinkler during coring may result not just in a broken sprinkler but also a broken underlying water pipe too.
There should be clear access to all lawn areas, whereby the lawn coring machine can be moved around to different lawn areas without causing any damage to any other part of the garden.
We need to consider also how we’re going to finish off the lawn coring.
How are we going to remove the divots, and are we going to fertilise or top dress the lawn when we are finished lawn coring?
If so to any of these options, we will need a lawn mower on hand, we need to have fertiliser on hand, soil on hand for top dressing, a way to cart the soil to the lawn, tools to spread the soil on the lawn etc.
Thinking carefully and planning our steps before we begin, with all preparations done prior to us going to the hire shop to hire this machine or before we engage a contractor to do the work for us.
What Happens To The Lawn After Its Cored
Once the lawn has been fully cored the lawn should be looking a right royal mess, with divots of the turf laying all over the lawn which the lawn coring machine has removed. Our options after this are a few…
We can take our rotary mower, with a catcher attached, and mow up all the mess on the lawn, leaving open holes all through the lawn. This is absolutely fine to do and the holes will cover over in a short space of time in the growing season.
We may also take our rotary mower and mulch mow the lawn area, which would break up all the divots into much finer particles all over the lawn. This too is fine, especially if we have a high quality soil underneath our lawns. There would be no need to do anything else after mulch mowing other than to mow the lawn as it is usually mowed whenever it is next due.
Fertilising After Lawn Coring
Fertilising a lawn after it has been cored is pretty much standard practice.
A high quality lawn fertiliser is used and applied at the manufacturer’s recommended spread rates, just as we would normally fertilise our lawns. Some of this fertiliser will fall into all the little holes in the turf, though this is not the primary function here.
Instead what we’re doing is combining the benefits of lawn coring with the benefits of fertilising our lawns together, so that they work together to give us a better overall improvement to our lawn health.
The fertilising will prompt the lawn into some new growth, which combined with the new oxygenation of the soil, and if also combined with a soil improvement too, should all work together to bring the lawn back to life and flourishing rather quickly.
public park managers know the benefits
Soil And Lawn Improvements After Lawn Coring
Once the lawn coring is completed and if we have removed the divots from the turf with either a rake or by a mower with a catcher, we could then undertake soil improvements if we so wanted.
If our lawn is clay based and regularly becomes water=logged, then we could apply a top dressing of sand, which would fill in all the little holes in the turf, which would help make our soil more free flowing for water.
Alternatively if our lawn was very sandy, we could add a top dressing of some rich garden soil to the lawn, which would also fill in the holes in the soil, thus improving our soil quality.
Can Homeowners Core Their Own Lawns
Yes, most certainly the homeowner can aerate their own lawns with a lawn coring machine, hire shops should have these machines available for use, thus reducing the cost for us.
Consideration should first be given to the job at hand though.
A lawn coring machine can be large, can be heavy, and can be difficult to manoeuvre, so we should take these considerations into mind first before proceeding with the work itself. Although if the machine can be adequately handled by the homeowner then the task itself shouldn’t be at all difficult.
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