Aeration, Overseeding
& Soil Health
Most Oklahoma lawns sit on heavy clay. Clay packs tight and holds nutrients where roots cannot reach them, so you can feed a compacted lawn all year and never see the results. This is the program that works on the ground itself.
Core aeration
The machine pulls thousands of soil plugs out of the lawn. Those holes let water, air and nutrients reach the roots directly instead of fighting through compacted clay. It is the single best thing for a lawn's health. Bermuda is aerated April to August, while it is actively growing and can fill the holes back in; fescue in spring and fall. Water deeply a day or two before: damp soil pulls a bigger, cleaner plug. Then leave the plugs. They break down in a week or two and feed the lawn, and raking them up undoes half the service.
Overseeding · fescue only
Fescue seed spread directly after aeration while the holes are open, so the seed reaches soil instead of thatch. Fescue does not spread sideways the way Bermuda does, so it has to be overseeded every year to stay thick; Bermuda is not seeded in this program. Fall is the main event. Spring seeding thickens thin areas before summer heat. Seed put down in summer cooks. After that, water decides everything: keep the seeded areas consistently moist with short, frequent watering for the first couple of weeks, then less often and deeper once it is up. Do not mow until the new grass is rooted.
Soil Conditioning · add-on
An add-on applied across the whole lawn on your fertilizer rounds; it rides on every truck, so there is no separate visit. A liquid that works on the soil, not the grass. It loosens the soil profile and frees up what is already there, so fertilizer goes further and roots go deeper, and it carries iron, which greens the grass without pushing growth. You see the color first, over the next week or so. The soil work does not show, because soil does not change color; what you see over the season is better drainage, turf that handles heat better, and fertilizer that seems to do more. It is cumulative. Each application builds on the last.
Gypsum · add-on
Calcium sulfate, a granular soil amendment applied on its own visit at the end of the season. It supplies calcium and sulfur, two nutrients regular fertilizer does not carry much of, and over time it helps tight clay particles clump into larger crumbs so water, air and roots move through instead of running off the top. It goes last so it has the winter to work in before spring green-up. It is a soil improvement, not a fertilizer, so there is no color change, and it does not change pH. Raising a low pH takes lime; lowering a high one takes sulfur; whether a lawn needs either is a soil-test question for our agronomist.
How to tell if compaction is your problem
The screwdriver test
Push a long screwdriver into moist soil. If it stops in the first three or four inches, you have a compaction layer, and everything you apply is sitting on top of it.
Water runs off
If irrigation puddles or runs to the curb within a few minutes instead of soaking in, the surface has sealed. Aeration opens it back up.
It wilts fast
A lawn that looks stressed two days after watering has shallow roots. Roots are shallow because they hit something they cannot get through, or because they were never asked to go deeper: a little water every day grows a lawn that cannot handle July.
New construction
If your house is under about eight years old, heavy equipment compacted the ground and the sod went down on top of it. Assume compaction until proven otherwise.
Three things to know
Flag your sprinkler heads
You mark every head and any buried hazard before the visit; we provide the flags in advance, and the technician verifies the marking before starting. If heads are unmarked, the technician calls the office before aerating. Need help marking? Ask and we will arrange it.
Aeration after pre-emergent is fine
Yes, book it. Bermuda aeration runs April to August and fescue spring and fall, and the rounds are timed so the two work together.
Seeding after pre-emergent is not
Pre-emergent stops seeds from establishing, and that includes grass seed; sod roots into the same barrier. The barrier lasts about 120 days and breaks down three ways: time, rototilling the area, or watering it in deeper than six inches. We can tell you the earliest date.
