Aerating Lawns at Armenian Heritage Park

Greenway Tractor with Aerator Attachment

Several times a year, we aerate our lawns using an amazing device that we attach to our tractor.  Aeration helps keep our lawns from compacting and it’s part of our organic care program for the Greenway.  To put it simply, aeration removes small cores of soil, opening holes in lawns, allowing air, water and other nutrients that we apply, such as compost and compost tea, to permeate the soil.  With hundreds of thousands of people walking, running, sitting and in general, enjoying our lawns annually, it’s an important part of what we do to keep our lawns green and healthy.

Horticulture Staff Using Hand Aeration Tools at the Labyrinth

For the lawn in the labyrinth at Armenian Heritage Park, which we began to care for beginning in July of last year, we needed to use a different approach, as the beautiful granite pavers that make up the labyrinth, segment the lawn into smaller areas.  So, we purchase several hand aeration tools and put our muscles to work. We borrowed a small mechnical aerator machine for the larger lawn areas.

The right tool for the narrow strips of grass in the Labyrinth

In addition to the aeration, we overseeded, applied Humates, top-dressed the lawn with by hand with compost and then applied an extra application of compost tea to the lawn.  This is all part of our spring/summer organic lawn treatment program.

Results of Hand Aeration – the cores of soil removed from the holes break down quickly.