HomeGuy" "Home wrote:
Oren wrote:

+1 on using gypsum. Use a coring aerator that removes the 2" plugs.
Scatter the gypsum and water the area. The gypsum helps break down
the clay so water can penetrate the soil - in my experience.

Coring also allows plenty of oxygen into the soil.

You guys (particularly you Oren) are full of so much shit on this
topic it's beyond belief.

Your ideas especially about oxygen are pulled straight out of your
ass.

You may (or may not) be the world's greatest authority on lawns but there is
no reason to be so rude regardless of your expertise. Try and learn from
those who know more and teach those who know less without struting your ego
so much.

David

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A better world requires a daily struggle
against those who would mislead us.

David E. Ross wrote:
You -- HomeGuy -- have just joined Todd in my filter system.
Good-bye.

Good luck on that.

David E. Ross wrote:

You -- HomeGuy -- have just joined Todd in my filter system.
Good-bye.

You -- David Ross - you'll read my posts when and if I want you to.


Bob F wrote:

Good luck on that.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking.

Tony Hwang wrote:

Lawn aeration is a crock.

Definitely beneficial for healthy lawn in our locale.

Stupid move, Tony. You're deluding yourself.

In areas that get sub-freezing in winter (like most of Canada) the many
cycles of frost heaving (freeze-thaw) in winter does a great job of
breaking up residential soil.

Think about it.

Just look what it does to our roads, and imagine what is going on in the
soil.

HomeGuy wrote:
Guv Bob wrote:

Anybody know where to get an aerator ...

Why do you think your residential front or back yard needs plugs of turf
to be removed from it?

Plugs are NOT removed, they are extracted and returned to the lawn.
Plug aeration is a mild form of tilling that doesn't disturb the turf,
an excellent practice for ALL established lawns. I do not recommend
aeration for non-lawns, then rototilling with added amendments is
highly recommended. Aerating poor soil will not improve it, may even
make poor soil worse by accelerating erosion.

On Sun, 20 Jul 2014 09:22:21 -0400, HomeGuy
Home@guy.com wrote:

Tony Hwang wrote:

Lawn aeration is a crock.

Definitely beneficial for healthy lawn in our locale.

Stupid move, Tony. You're deluding yourself.

In areas that get sub-freezing in winter (like most of Canada) the many
cycles of frost heaving (freeze-thaw) in winter does a great job of
breaking up residential soil.

Think about it.

Just look what it does to our roads, and imagine what is going on in the
soil.

Poor analogy.

Frost heaving may break up pavement but does nothing to improve
compacted soil, in fact when it finally dries it will be more
compacted. In spring as soon as soil is friable is the best time to
till/aerate before soil dries. Garden soil is not pavement.

David E. Ross wrote:
You -- HomeGuy -- have just joined Todd in my filter system.
Good-bye.

Usenet Rule No. 106: Those who publicly announce killfiling do not.
Best to simply ignore the douchebags without comment.

On Fri, 18 Jul 2014 19:18:31 -0700, "David E. Ross"
wrote:

Spike aerators do more damage than they correct. They compact the soil
around the holes they create.

Plugging aerators loosen the soil by removing plugs. Where the soil is
heavy clay, this can be a great benefit. The holes permit water to
penetrate the surface, carrying nutrients towards roots. Believe it or
not, roots also benefit from the increase in oxygen reaching them.
Spike aerators prevent all this instead of permitting it.

Aeration can be important wherever there is foot traffic across a
planted area.

"Plugging" aerators also remove thatch in the lawn turf at the same
time (two birds - one stone).

Here in the desert, we live on "hard pan" / compacted soil. Much of
the reason we have flash floods from water not soaking into the
ground. Dust is like talc powder.

Gypsum is used to break down the difficult soil - reducing compaction.
Many home gardens are in raised beads vs fighting the soil without a
back-hoe.

Golf course greens are aerated or thatched.

Brooklyn1 wrote:

Lawn aeration is a crock.

In areas that get sub-freezing in winter (like most of Canada)
the many cycles of frost heaving (freeze-thaw) in winter does
a great job of breaking up residential soil.

Just look what it does to our roads, and imagine what is going
on in the soil.

Poor analogy.

Frost heaving may break up pavement but does nothing to improve
compacted soil,

Completely absurd.

A simple search of the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on soil quickly
gave me this:

==================
Secondary Frost Heave in Freezing Soils by Christopher Noon
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of Oxford
1996

Frost heave is responsible for numerous environmental problems including
damage to roads, pavements and the foundations of buildings. Other less
obvious problems are caused by the weakening of ground when a frozen
soil, especially one which has heaved, thaws. This occurs because frost
heave and freezing of soil in general, induces a moisture flow up
towards the freezing front thereby increasing its frozen water content
and dramatically decreasing the frozen soil’s permeability due to a
decrease in water fraction and the presence of ice lenses. Thawing
occurs naturally from the soil surface downwards and hence the thawed
soil can become saturated causing it to suffer a complete loss of
strength.

http://eprints.maths.ox.ac.uk/27/1/noon.pdf
=================

Anyone who lives in (at least) the northern 1/3 of the US and all of
Canada knows that when walking on your lawn in April (or in May in
Canada) when the last of the snow has melted from your front or back
lawns knows how spongy the ground feels.

It is a complete crock of shit to think that aerating your lawn does
anything to "break up" or "loosen" your soil under those conditions.

And take a look at this:

http://www.scotts.com/smg/goART2/Inf...myths/12300004

======================
Myth #2: You Need to Aerate Your Lawn Every Year

Aerating is hard work that requires expensive machinery. Fortunately,
you may not have to do it. Aeration is helpful when your lawn has a lot
of foot traffic that compacts the soil. Also, if you have a lot of
thatch, or if you need to amend the soil, you may want to aerate. If
not, save yourself some time and money, not to mention an aching back.

Myth #3: Gypsum Aerates Your Lawn

Somebody made a lot of money with this one. If you spread gypsum on your
lawn, you'll end up with some very nice pebbles, but not an aerated
lawn.
=======================

Thatch removal or management is frequently mentioned as a byproduct of
core aeration. What is never mentioned is that if you always bag and
remove your grass clippings, you'll never have a thatch problem (and all
associated problems that come from harboring various turf insects and
diseases).

And to some degree the raking of the plugs that happens by people who
take more of an interest in lawn care and succumb to the placebo effect
of thinking their lawns looks better after coring are really just seeing
the effect of thatch removal which can make an early spring lawn look
much better.

HomeGuy Home@guy.com wrote:
David E. Ross wrote:

You -- HomeGuy -- have just joined Todd in my filter
system.
Good-bye.

You -- David Ross - you'll read my posts when and if I
want you to.

So you admit to being a morphing peice of shit troll.
Got it, glad that you finally can admit for all to see
POS

On Sun, 20 Jul 2014 12:19:05 -0400, HomeGuy
Home@guy.com wrote:

Brooklyn1 wrote:

Lawn aeration is a crock.

In areas that get sub-freezing in winter (like most of Canada)
the many cycles of frost heaving (freeze-thaw) in winter does
a great job of breaking up residential soil.

Just look what it does to our roads, and imagine what is going
on in the soil.

Poor analogy.

Frost heaving may break up pavement but does nothing to improve
compacted soil,

Anyone who lives in (at least) the northern 1/3 of the US and all of
Canada knows that when walking on your lawn in April (or in May in
Canada) when the last of the snow has melted from your front or back
lawns knows how spongy the ground feels.


You conveniently deleted where I said when it DRIES... you are a
douchebag, an imbecile, and very dishonest.

Brooklyn1 wrote:

You conveniently deleted where I said when it DRIES... you are a
douchebag, an imbecile, and very dishonest.

And you're a dumb ****.

What do you do when it dries?

You water it, you shit-head.

What a ****ing genius you are. Core your lawn in the spring - when it
just came through freeze-thaw pulverization (if that's your climate)
when it doesn't need it, so that magically it won't be hard when it
dries in the summer (because you didn't water it).

So tell me, what sort of magic does coring do in the spring (that
freeze-thawing doesn't do) such that by summer your dried-out soil
somehow magically doesn't get hard.

And I don't care what the lawn-care industry says (they with their
vested interests in you spending money on their stuff). If your lawn is
basically there for you to look at - AND every once in a while to walk
on it, then it doesn't matter if you're in a zone that doesn't freeze.
Without punishing foot traffic (or car parking, etc) there is nothing
compacting your soil. Pulling plugs out of your lawn is for the birds
in that case.

Guv Bob wrote:

What type of soil do you have in Long Beach?

Below 1-2 inches, it's hard-packed clay in this particular spot.
This was just an idea. Water won't penetrate it.

Grass roots don't really grow much below 2" anyways. Just look at rolls
of sod. They certainly don't come 2" thick (with soil).

Lawns need almost daily watering when the daily high temp reaches 80
unless except on overcast days - then maybe you can go 4 days without
water.

This is a small area - about 10 x 30 ft.

Forget aerating. Have a yard of black earth / top-soil delivered and
rake it evenly all over, and throw in some grass seed while you're at
it. THAT is by far the most accepted way to deal with poor sub-soil
conditions without completely replacing the top 4" of soil.

And then you need to water.

But you haven't said anything about your ability to irrigate this patch
of grass. What municipal water restrictions are you under currently -
now and for the next few months?

On 7/20/2014 4:41 PM, Guv Bob wrote [in part]:
This is a small area - about 10 x 30 ft. Would be nice to have
grass there, but being dirt is OK, and not worth renting anything. A
few years ago I had to put ground cover on a bare compacted clay
hill. I ended up getting a 5/8-inch masonry bit and drilling 4-inch
holes about 6-8 inches apart, dropping red apple ice plant pieces in
and filling with good soil. Nearly all survived and within a year
the hill was covered.


While it used to be quite common to plant ice plant on a slope, the
recommendation today is very much against that. During a rain, ice
plant takes up much water and becomes quite heavy. The roots tend to be
shallow and not very extensive. The result is that the ice plant will
often pull loose, slide down the hill, and take part of the hill with it.

I am very sensitive about proper planting of slopes since the hill in my
back yard has slipped twice. The second time, the repair cost almost
four times what I paid for my house; my grandchildren will make the last
payment on the federal disaster loan. No, there is no such thing as
insurance against a slope failing; and the repairs are never guaranteed.

Grape vines are very good on a hill; they have very tough, deep roots
and generally do not care how poor is the soil. Alone, African daisies
or ivy (English or Algerian) are not good because their roots tend to
form a mat that can become a weak layer; African daisies and ivy mixed
together, however, are excellent on a hill because those mats are at
different depths and tend to be less concentrated.

According to the grading experts in my county's public works agency,
trees on a hill can be bad. In a wind, they rock back and forth,
breaking up the soil around the bases of the trunks. With a major rain
storm, that becomes a path for a large amount of water to funnel down to
the subsoil. Depending on their alignment, this can lubricate the
boundary between soil and subsoil and trigger a slide. On the other
hand, shrubs are okay.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary

"Guv Bob" wrote in message m...
"HomeGuy" "Home"@Guy.com wrote in message ...
Guv Bob wrote:

Anybody know where to get an aerator ...

Lawn aeration is a crock.

There are VERY FEW situations where aeration is really called for and
the mechanical alteration of soil is necessary to improve turf health.

Those few situations are mostly sports fields, golf courses, etc. And
the aeration they perform uses spikes that do not core out plugs of
turf.

Why do you think your residential front or back yard needs plugs of turf
to be removed from it?

What type of soil do you have in Long Beach?

Below 1-2 inches, it's hard-packed clay in this particular spot. This was just an idea. Water won't penetrate it. Trying to avoid roto-tilling. It's level and rolling a 200 pound barrel on a rock-hard surface like this is pretty easy. I have rolled a 55 gal drum of liquid on the same place -- that's where I got the idea.


This is a small area - about 10 x 30 ft. Would be nice to have grass there, but being dirt is OK, and not worth renting anything. A few years ago I had to put ground cover on a bare compacted clay hill. I ended up getting a 5/8-inch masonry bit and drilling 4-inch holes about 6-8 inches apart, dropping red apple ice plant pieces in and filling with good soil. Nearly all survived and within a year the hill was covered.