Liquid Aeration vs. Core Aeration: What's Best for Your New England Lawn?

Aerating your lawn is one of the best things that you can do for its overall health. That’s because when soil is well-aerated, it can circulate water, oxygen, and nutrients down to the roots where they’re really needed. Lawn aeration benefits include growing thicker, greener, and overall healthier grass.

While mechanical aeration (aka, “core aeration”) has always been the gold standard, these days you might be seeing more pop up about liquid lawn aeration. But is liquid aeration effective?

In this article, we’ll compare core aeration vs. liquid aeration and share everything you ought to know. At the end of the day, we want you to get the most success out of your lawn care services - and in most cases that means sticking with old fashioned core aeration.

Jump to:

What Does Lawn Aeration Do?
Do I Have to Aerate My Lawn in New England?
What is Liquid Lawn Aeration?
Is Liquid Lawn Aeration Effective?
Choosing Lawn Care in Southern NH, Northeastern Massachusetts, and Southern Maine

What Does Lawn Aeration Do?

Lawn aeration involves relieving compaction and creating more space within the soil structure itself.

When soil becomes compacted, the soil particles are pressed close together. This means that things like oxygen, water, and nutrients do not have a lot of space to move. It’s why compacted soil often becomes waterlogged, with water sitting atop the soil. It can’t penetrate down to the root zone.

But different types of lawn aeration aim to break up that compaction. This leads to healthier roots which means healthier grass.

Do I Have to Aerate My Lawn in New England?

Yes, because of the clay soils we have here in New England, lawns are highly prone to compaction and can greatly benefit from annual lawn aeration. Lawn aeration benefits make this service highly valuable. When a lawn is well-aerated, it grows thicker and greener. You’ll notice a difference in its overall health over time.

Of course, the type of lawn aeration that you choose can have an impact on your results. Spoiler alert…there’s nothing on the market right now that is better than mechanical core aeration. We’ll get more into that shortly.

While we know people often want to skip lawn aeration (or find a cheaper, easier method), it truly is one of the best things that you can do for your New England lawn. If you care about having healthy grass, you’ll want to invest in mechanical aeration.

What is Liquid Lawn Aeration?

Liquid lawn aeration involves using chemical products on the lawn that are said to break down thatch layers and help loosen soil. It’s a newer product/method that’s gaining some interest as everyone likes to keep up with “what’s new.”

Unfortunately, when weighing core aeration vs. liquid aeration there’s really no comparison. We’ll explain more in the next section.

Is Liquid Lawn Aeration Effective?

While products used to improve the overall microbial activity in soil can be useful, they aren’t going to be powerful enough to break through the heavily compacted clay soils that we deal with here in New England.

Nothing on the market right now is going to work as well as actual mechanical aeration, which involves pulling cores of soil from the ground and creating holes throughout the lawn. With mechanical aeration, those cores of soil are also left intentionally on the ground to decompose and introduce nutrients back into the soil.

If you do decide to try out a liquid lawn aeration product or service, we highly recommend that it is done alongside - not in place of - mechanical core aeration.

Choosing Lawn Care in Southern NH, Northeastern Massachusetts, and Southern Maine

Of course, even your mechanical aeration results can vary depending on who you hire to perform this service.

Getting the most out of a lawn aeration service comes down to choosing a company that invests in high-quality equipment and has experienced technicians operating it. While plenty of lawn care companies offer these services, the best results will come from those that don’t skimp or cut corners.

At Seacoast Turf Care, we want to see you get all of the lawn aeration benefits. We truly believe that aeration and  overseeding are two of the best things that you can do to produce a thick, healthy, and thriving lawn.

In fact, aeration is often the service that takes an average lawn and makes it into a spectacular lawn. When your lawn is well-aerated, our other services like fertilization and weed control also work better because these products aren’t just sitting on top of the soil.

At Seacoast Turf Care, we’d love to help you take your lawn to the next level with high-quality lawn aeration. If you have any questions that we can answer, we’re always here to help.

Want to learn more about what makes us a great choice for your lawn care needs? At Seacoast Turf Care, we service NH towns near Stratham, North Hampton, Exeter and many more. Get lawn care pricing for your Southern NH, Southern Maine, or Northeastern Massachusetts property.