On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:38:24 -0800, "Warren"
wrote:



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.

Aerating in the spring just opens things up for summer weeds. Wait
until fall to do aeration and reseeding.

Thunder