Aerating a heavily thatched yard

[jaybow]

Today I tryed aerating my brothers heavily thatched yard and my brand new bluebird 742 didnt pull many plugs.I gotta say I thought it would have worked better than that. The yard was verry spongy andthe plugs it did pull all 3 inches were thatch. What should he do topdress with compost after dethatching. If a person truely dethatched that yard there wouldnt be much left. Has anyone ever ran into this before?

[MileHigh]

I would wait untill the lawn was dry, power rake it, get rid of debris, water the piss out of it, and immediately areate and fertilize.

[jaybow]

Anyone have an experience like this?

[lawn king]

If the lawn has 3 inches of thatch, its time for a full renovation.

[rcreech]

If the lawn has 3 inches of thatch, its time for a full renovation.

Yep!

I don't think of aeration correcting a thatch issue.

You need to remove all the thatch down to the soil level and start over!

Be ready to HAUL, HAUL, HAUL!

I just removed 1-1.5" off part of a guys lawn this past weekend and the area was only about 5K and we got 3 dump truck loads off it.

Have fun!

[Smallaxe]

3" of thatch!?!

There are 2 common definitions of thatch.

The last sod I dealt with was not growing in soil at all. They skimmed off the thatch layer, containing the live roots and stems, to set root into the soil of their new home.
Do yourself a favor and read over the following link. It is only one page with pictures. :)

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/lawnchallenge/lesson5.html

[turfcobob]

Today I tryed aerating my brothers heavily thatched yard and my brand new bluebird 742 didnt pull many plugs.I gotta say I thought it would have worked better than that. The yard was verry spongy andthe plugs it did pull all 3 inches were thatch. What should he do topdress with compost after dethatching. If a person truely dethatched that yard there wouldnt be much left. Has anyone ever ran into this before?

You have a dethatcher right....Put it to work and remove the thatch down to less than .50 inch. Then you will probably have to restore the lawn. With thatch that thick the existing grass plants are probably living in the thatch so they will go with the dethatching. To correct the problem with out removing the thatch is a long process of aeration and top dressing. Quick way is to remove the thatch and start over.

[joshua]

3'' of thatch ? rule of thumb is any lawn with 1" or more of thatch should be totally reseeded. sod cut all the old out and reseed from new. that will be the best route for you to go.