what do you think about core aeration

[cpmnate]

Hey everyone I recently purchased a fairly large lawn maintenance and snow removal company to increase my cash flow enough to quit my regular job and do this full time. Currently the previous owner subbed out the aeration work I am wondering what machine you think is the best for this and how many times a season I should recommend this service to my customers. I have been looking at a ryan lawnaire 28, but my dealer seemed to think one of the drum types was going to be better. What is everyone charging for this service?

[JayD]

Originally Posted by cpmnate

Hey everyone I recently purchased a fairly large lawn maintenance and snow removal company to increase my cash flow enough to quit my regular job and do this full time. Currently the previous owner subbed out the aeration work I am wondering what machine you think is the best for this and how many times a season I should recommend this service to my customers. I have been looking at a ryan lawnaire 28, but my dealer seemed to think one of the drum types was going to be better. What is everyone charging for this service?

People do this in the spring and or in the fall. If you can get to to do it every year, great, but at min every two. Put it this way, your not going to hurt anything by doing it to much, it can only help.

[mowerbrad]

Dethatch in the spring and aerate in the fall.

[GreenI.A.]

Unless the soil is extreamly compacted try to avoid aeration in the spring. One of the keys to aeration is that it encourages root growth, pre-emergents in the spring effect new root growth, so these two together will stress the turf. Don't take the wrong idea about aeration from this, core aeration is extreamly beneficial to the turf and is also a great money maker; I recomend them to each of my customers anually, which about 75% of them have it done. Aeration in the fall is also a great time to overseed aswell, it isn't as good as slice seeding but will help thicken up a thining turf.

[DA Quality Lawn & YS]

Aeration is a must if you have clay soil. Absolute must.
I would recommend a hydro unit aerator like Lawn Solutions OR Turfco's.
I think that is what I am going to invest in by next fall.