Lawns need treatment all year round, to keep them healthy and looking good. Weeds, moss and diseases are all constant in our often wet and cool British climate. So, if we want a luscious, dense, green lawn, maintenance is required.
What is Lawn Scarification?
Lawn scarification is the process of removing the build-up of organic matter from your lawn. This organic debris, including moss and thatch (dead grass) is removed from the surface of the lawn, and also from around the roots of the grass.
Scarifying, with a proper lawn scarifier, involves the blades of the machine digging slightly into the soil. This means we remove maximum thatch and we are left with grooves, ideal for grass seed to sit in.
What are signs your lawn may need Scarifying?
- How the grass looks – mossy and/or bare patches
- How the grass feels – when you walk over the lawn you sink into it
- The lawn dries out rapidly – with a large thatch layer, the grass roots can’t access the moisture from the soil, so in periods of dry weather the grass roots will dry out much quicker
How do we Scarify Lawns?
Before we arrive to scarify the lawn, we require customers to mow their lawn on their mowers shortest setting.
With short grass, the blades of our professional scarifier machines, will be able to get straight into the thatch layer. Cutting the grass short also means that it won’t need to be cut for a while, allowing the newly sown grass seed to lay undisturbed whilst it germinates.
We adjust the depth of our scarification machine, depending on the individual lawn and the depth of the thatch layer. We usually scarify the lawn in 2 to 4 passes, each pass at a different angle, and at different depths until we are sure that we have reached the bottom of the thatch layer and therefore top of the soil. This is one of the things that sets us apart from the bigger lawn care franchises – who generally only carry out one pass across the lawn, at one depth.
When we have finished removing all of the moss and thatch, we use our blowers and rakes to clear up the debris, before overseeding the lawn.
If the scarify is part of a Lawn Repair and Renovation, then we will aerate the lawn before scarifying.
When to carry out Lawn Scarification?
Lawns are best scarified between in Autumn and Spring. Although some lawn care companies do scarify through summer and winter, we won’t do so. The reason being, we want the best results for your lawn.
Scarification is a harsh lawn treatment and for the lawn to recover well, the grass needs to be actively growing and the soil wet and warm. New grass seed needs to be kept moist for up to 21 days to germinate, take root and fully establish.
Soil keeps its warm temperature much longer than air temperature, which is why we can continue scarifying into October, however particularly thatchy and mossy lawns are best left until Spring, when we can perform a more aggressive scarify, with the whole grass growing season ahead of us, where the new grass can grow denser.