Brooklyn1 wrote:

Lawn aeration is a crock.

In areas that get sub-freezing in winter (like most of Canada)
the many cycles of frost heaving (freeze-thaw) in winter does
a great job of breaking up residential soil.

Just look what it does to our roads, and imagine what is going
on in the soil.

Poor analogy.

Frost heaving may break up pavement but does nothing to improve
compacted soil,

Completely absurd.

A simple search of the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on soil quickly
gave me this:

==================
Secondary Frost Heave in Freezing Soils by Christopher Noon
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of Oxford
1996

Frost heave is responsible for numerous environmental problems including
damage to roads, pavements and the foundations of buildings. Other less
obvious problems are caused by the weakening of ground when a frozen
soil, especially one which has heaved, thaws. This occurs because frost
heave and freezing of soil in general, induces a moisture flow up
towards the freezing front thereby increasing its frozen water content
and dramatically decreasing the frozen soil’s permeability due to a
decrease in water fraction and the presence of ice lenses. Thawing
occurs naturally from the soil surface downwards and hence the thawed
soil can become saturated causing it to suffer a complete loss of
strength.

http://eprints.maths.ox.ac.uk/27/1/noon.pdf
=================

Anyone who lives in (at least) the northern 1/3 of the US and all of
Canada knows that when walking on your lawn in April (or in May in
Canada) when the last of the snow has melted from your front or back
lawns knows how spongy the ground feels.

It is a complete crock of shit to think that aerating your lawn does
anything to "break up" or "loosen" your soil under those conditions.

And take a look at this:

http://www.scotts.com/smg/goART2/Inf...myths/12300004

======================
Myth #2: You Need to Aerate Your Lawn Every Year

Aerating is hard work that requires expensive machinery. Fortunately,
you may not have to do it. Aeration is helpful when your lawn has a lot
of foot traffic that compacts the soil. Also, if you have a lot of
thatch, or if you need to amend the soil, you may want to aerate. If
not, save yourself some time and money, not to mention an aching back.

Myth #3: Gypsum Aerates Your Lawn

Somebody made a lot of money with this one. If you spread gypsum on your
lawn, you'll end up with some very nice pebbles, but not an aerated
lawn.
=======================

Thatch removal or management is frequently mentioned as a byproduct of
core aeration. What is never mentioned is that if you always bag and
remove your grass clippings, you'll never have a thatch problem (and all
associated problems that come from harboring various turf insects and
diseases).

And to some degree the raking of the plugs that happens by people who
take more of an interest in lawn care and succumb to the placebo effect
of thinking their lawns looks better after coring are really just seeing
the effect of thatch removal which can make an early spring lawn look
much better.