JULY/AUGUST 2006

What do you need to make your life complete? For me, the answer is easy. I need someone to come and core aerate my lawn, dadgumit!I will never forget the day I first heard about core aeration. As a self-taught gardener who one day sat down and started writing garden columns (it was a true visitation of the Muses in the Classical sense), I had a lot to learn. So I joined the Garden Writers of America and jumped at the chance to attend their annual symposiums—fun-filled blends of educational seminars and bus trips to public and private gardens where you always meet some very nice people. This one was in Mobile, Alabama, in November. The temperature was a glorious 80 degrees. Jeff Ball, a GWA member who was then doing a regular gardening gig on NBC’s Today show, was one of the presenters, and he stated front and center that core aeration was one of the single most important things you could do to create a healthy lawn. Golf courses didn’t fertilize, he pointed out—too big—but they did aerate, using machines about the size of a floor sander to come and pull 2-inch-deep soil plugs from the yard. Why? To get oxygen down into the soil so that the roots of the grass can probe ever deeper, he explained. The deeper the roots, the healthier the plants, and the less often you need to water—or fertilize. “Core aeration will eliminate the need for at least one fertilizer application a season,” he asserted. Core aeration also prevents thatch, since the roots are growing downward instead of hovering on the soil surface.One gardening soul saved. Jeff had talked the talk. I flew home, converted and ready to walk the walk. Easier said than done.The next spring and for a few springs thereafter, I used a major landscape contracting company to do the job since they were already coming into the neighborhood to take care of the high-rise on my block. But after a couple years of paying for the job in February (as required) and not getting the work done until July (after a few friendly reminders), it became clear that they didn’t really want my business. Too small a job. And that has been the story ever since. Company reps make appointments to come out and see my yard and never show up. Guys I find working on a neighborhood site promise to come by but don’t. Even young guys just starting out in the business stand me up.

These days I’ve pretty much given up on ever being able to get my lawn aerated. I now go out with a handy dandy tool from Hound Dog that enables me to do it by hand—two neat holes at a time—and sometimes I poke around with the spading fork, which gives me four rather scruffy looking ones. At this rate, I should finish sometime around Halloween.