Rolling Thunder wrote:
Steveo wrote:
Rolling Thunder wrote:
mo wrote:
I live in NJ. Should I rake up all the thatch in early spring
or leave it down on grass?
My lawn is pretty healthy with very little weeds.
When should I fertilize and aerate?


Time to aerate is in the fall.

What's wrong with spring?

Come summer all the effort done during spring dies from heat and
water loss.


What dies? The holes you punch in the lawn, or the fertilizer? Or the person
who did the work?

If you mean that dethatching, aerating and fertilizing in the spring will
cause more of the lawn to die than if you hadn't done anything, I'd
disagree. The lawn that survived the winter has a root system that will
allow it to survive all but the most abnormal summer. Yes, it'll go dormant
if you don't water it, but it will go dormant if you don't water it
regardless of whether or not you dethatched, aerated and fertilized in the
spring.

Now if he were also to re-seed, the new grass may not have enough of a root
system to survive the summer without a lot of watering, but if the choices
are to re-seed and have it not survive, or leave it bare, I'd still seed in
the spring, though possibly with a mix that includes more annual grass, and
plan on doing more serious re-seeding in fall.

For a cool season lawn, detatching, aerating and fertilizing in the fall is
better than the spring. But spring is the second best time to do it. But if
the lawn is in bad enough shape, doing nothing until fall may only allow
things to get worse. Nothing is going to die because of dethatching,
aerating and fertilizing in the spring.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.

Power Lawncare Tools for Spring Clean-up:
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/blackanddecker/