Lawns - Aeration question

I am on the board for a townhouse association (4 rectangular 2 story quads=48 units) where lawn watering is the responsibility of the individual. A lawn service does the mowing, trimming and minor tree/shrub trimming up to 6'.

There are some older people that always show up for the meetings and try to keep every cost down.

Our soil is really not good and can get very hard. If we get long periods of slow rain it will look decent for a while, but is not healthy.

I am on the board and trying to look out for the external appearance to maintain the property values. Many older people do absolutely nothing and it detracts. Last year, I insisted that the soil should be aerated. To cut the pennies to a minimum, they had a kid drag a point or spike aerator behind the tractor while was listening to his I-Pod.

We had a very dry spring and summer and the lawns looked terrible until we has about 5" of rain in a cool august to make things look good for a while.

I want to convince the rest of the board to go for a core aeration this fall to open things up and need information/ammunition.

What are the advantages of real core aeration compared to spikes that are not much better than wearing golf shoes. We have 18 years of neglect.

I water properly have spread gypsum and limestone in addition to supplement the minimal treatment by the landscaper(?) to make the mowing for the tractor jockies faster and easier. My neighbor does similar things and tapes off his yard weekly during the scheduled mowing and bought his own mower to do it right. I get accused of getting preferential treatment because I am on the board.

I need ammo for the next board meeting to justify doing it right at the next meeting. Our conditions are good for it and it is now the time for all the golf courses to do the fall core aeration. I know it will look bad for a while untile the cores break down, but the holes will make natural watering more efficient and minimize the amount of watering from the tap.

Thanx in advance

Dick

The spike aeration works for about 2 days until the hole closes up. Really does no good.

Core aeration, if done properly, works great. You need a 3 inch core taken up. Run machine in two directions. It needs to be raked up and taken somewhere off-site. Next is spreading coarse river sand on the area and dragged into the holes.

Now the soil has access to air and water. At some point you need to fertilize with 5-10-10 or similar to stimulate root and cell growth.

Actually Dick...you might be better served stopping by the Head Groundskeepers office at the golf course (not Carl's place in the equipment shed...lol). I bet they have plenty of material that you can get the others to look at, bulletins, professional journals, etc. Heck, he might even stop by the meeting.

That said, if its one of the larger spike aerators, you know like the ones the size of a piece of rebar..it can actually be worse for the soil since it compacts everything around the actual hole. Then the topsoil is washed in during rain and watering.

The little thin spikes really don't do squat.

before you commit to any core areation, since you mentioned that you water on a regular basis, you need to flag/mark your sprinkler heads that are not next to buildings. If they run an aerator over a sprinkler head or valve box it will punch a hole in it or break it off underneath. About $4 in flags can save you a lot of money in repairs.

Many landscapers also just use a $2 can of spray paint and make circles around everything. They will aerate close to the heads but leave enough distance to avoid hitting them.

But as for aeration it does a few things:

1. lets air down to the roots as well as water. Compacted soil does not let the roots breath. Compacted soil is also well-loved by many weeds out there.

2. Core aeration allows for new seed and fertilizer to penetrate deeper into the soil and allow better root growth for grass.

That is all I can think of off the top of my head.

Older units (1980-1982) that was a well built entry level town house at the time. The trees and general landscaping has done well, and created a great setting. In the last two days I have looked out the ground level sling door and saw two deer, a raccoon, red fox, possum and 15 wild turkeys. The 20' pines I see out the sliding door have gotten established. Because of the many original purchasers (declining in numbers), no real improvements have been made to keep the association dues down and not incur any assessments.

There are no sprinkling system anywhere and the same crew that speeds the mowers through get out of control when overplowing plowing the driveways and get away with it because they are cheap.

I am looking for maintenance requirement that can be described and get a price for the initial service. We usually have a great climate that grows grass well, but I can reach everything and I do a little extra fertilizing and surface amending (gypsum, etc.) to maintain my lawn, but many of the surrounding properties have minimal shrubs or landscaping and make the general properties look bad and decrease the property values and encourage a different type of people to buy in. Everyone owns their own property and is responsible for any plantings and grass beyond the minimal mowing maintenance by the "lawn" service. Anything beyond maintenance must be a change in the regulations where the little old ladies and men always attend and get a majority of the votes at any meeting.

I am just looking for a way to do a maintenance service that will help mother nature until the kids inherit the property and choose to dump it. That is why I need ammunition to justify increasing the budget slightly.

The townhouses are bigger than any others in the area and have a great setting in addition to the individual privacy afforded by the lay out (2 story. 1500 sf, 2 BR minimum, a deck with an oversize sliding door, a lower level patio with another slider, 2 baths typically, fireplaces and an over-sized family room or a 12x 16 family room with 3rd bedroom), concrete block party walls and you only see a neighbor except when you open the tuck-under garage and start driving out) or open your front door. I have several neighbors that even cut their own grass and have talked about aerating, but that would just be an island among the adjacent bad appearing properties.

Just looking for help before we create an island and let the oldies die off.