Last Updated on March 26, 2024 by Sharaj
Abnormalities like sponginess and yellow patches on your lawn are clear indications that your lawn needs scarifying. Thatch buildup can cause your lawn to not drain properly thus aiding puddles to form.
However, by scarifying the yard, you’ll remove all the debris causing havoc and help your yard look healthy and green again. This post answers all your questions about scarifiers so sit back, relax and enjoy!
What Is Thatch? Thatch is all the organic material formed among grasses in your yard. The basic thatch emerges as a result of the normal growth of plants in your lawn.
Turf do contain a substance known as ‘lignin’. As such, while it is part of the life cycle of plants to fall or die, the lignin prevents them from rotting. This means that the dead plants remain on the yard and even increases as new grasses spring up.
The danger of this is that the thatch eventually begins to suffocate the new grass growth. It does this by preventing all the essential nourishments from sunlight, water, and air from having access to the soil.
However, they don’t start wreaking serious havoc until they become around half to 1cm thick. At this point, they begin to obstruct the growth of the new plants.
Apart from Thatch Is There Any Other Thing to Worry About?
The answer is yes. There are many additional organic materials such as moss and dead weeds that are capable of building up inside your lawn and affect the healthy growth of your turf.
Plus, your soil may be compacted thus preventing your grasses from thriving. Scarifying will help tackle these issues.
Can I Simply Make Use of an Aerator?
While an aerator is quite useful, it is not capable of removing that much organic elements from a lawn. Their main job is to pierce holes in the soil to allow water, air, and nutrient to move freely through it.
This eliminates compaction and may even stop thatch symptoms. Meanwhile, a scarifier can aerate and stop thatch while still removing a tremendous amount of organic materials at the same time.
What Then Is Scarifying?
A scarifier pierces into the lawn surface with its bladed and cuts into your turf to bring out as many organic materials as are on the lawn. As they do this, they bore holes into the ground thus aerating it.
Scarifying is a kind of deep raking. Rakes are used to removing debris. A scarifier does this as well but it does it more effectively. Raking can only remove a few dirt, whereas scarifying will remove plenty of thatch and moss.
How Do I Scarify?
You can scarify using either a simple lawn rake or scarifier. Rakes are mild tools and are not likely to draw out much thatch. However, a scarify machine will do a much better job.
How Do Scarifiers Work?
A scarifier has steel blades that are designed inside the roller of the machine. When you drive the machine forward, the blades penetrate the ground at quick intervals.
These blades turn in a clockwise forward motion which allows them to leave organic materials behind while they work through the soil. The depth at which the machine scarify can be regulated since it has height adjustment settings.
What kinds of Scarifiers Can I Find?
Scarifiers are available in various types. Some include towed models, petrol-powered scarifiers and electric scarifiers. There are also battery-powered machines some of which are self-propelled while others are manually driven.
Some machines are designed as a combination of a scarifier and an aerating device. This comes in handy when you simply need to aerate and not necessarily dethatch.
How Quickly Do Results Show?
Do not expect any visible changes immediately you finish scarifying, except that your lawn will look ragged.
While you may have to wait a while for the grasses to begin to grow again, at least now you’re sure all the dead plants are gone and that your new grass will grow healthily.
Should I Prepare Before Scarifying?
The answer is yes. Before scarifying you need to make sure your grasses are short enough. If the turf is long, make sure to gradually cut them to a workable height a few days before you dethatch.
You will also want to remove all weeds and obstacles since they can cause havoc to your machine while you’re scarifying. Also, it is best to scarify when your lawn is dry.
What Periods Am I To Scarify?
This is a little bit uncertain. Typically, light scarifying is best done during the end of spring, especially between April and June. You can also scarify lightly around late summer and the early days of autumn. These periods fall between Late August and September.
However, you can do thorough dethatching during autumn. Consider between late August and early September. October can also work if the weather remains good. When you dethatch during this time there’s less probability that you’ll encounter any weed seeding problem.
Even so, autumn may not be the ideal time for you to scarify if there are plenty of shades like large bushes and trees inside your lawn. Your grass will probably be very thin during this period.
Can I Scarify During Winter?
The probability of your scarifying being effective in this season is low, so the answer is NO. Dethatching is most successful when the ground is neither too dry nor too wet.
This means that there has to be some moisture inside the soil, but it can’t be too much. However, in winter there’s plenty of water on the ground. And with this, scarify can mess the whole place up and even harm you or your equipment.
Digging into the frosted ground is difficult. Why not save your strength for when it wouldn’t be as hard? Anytime from January to February is a total NO-NO for scarifying.
How Do I Get Rid of The Moss I Remove?
Many scarifiers have collection bags or boxes just like that of any petrol or battery lawn mowers. The problem, however, is that the debris scarifiers take out are too much to fit into the bag or box.
As such, it may be better to simply allow the materials to drop on your lawn. You can rake up the debris after you’re done scarifying and transfer them to a compost pile. As a rule, never leave the debris on your lawn.
