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To prepare your lawn for core aeration, water it the day before you aerate. (Alternatively, you can wait until it rains and aerate the following day.) Aerating after watering or a rainy day will make the process easier since you can penetrate moist soil better than dry soil. You should also flag your sprinklers so that you don’t accidentally hit them while aerating. If you have a lot of thatch buildup in your yard, you might need to dethatch your lawn before aerating as well.

You can reseed a rundown lawn with dead grass, but first, you should remove all of the dead parts and test the soil. Doing this will help you understand what’s killing your lawn so that you can fix it and prevent it from ruining your new grass. Once you’ve made the appropriate adjustments, you can rake, fertilize, and reseed.

Strange as it may seem, poking holes in your lawn can do a great deal to help the grass grow back stronger, thicker, and happier. By allowing light, water, and nutrients to penetrate the soil, the grass can root down deeper and get more of what it needs to thrive. All of which is to say, if you care about the appearance of your lawn, yes, lawn aeration is usually worth the money—especially since it’s not that expensive.

Each type of grass has its own specific needs regarding the timing of aeration, but in general, late summer to early fall is the best time to do so. For most lawns, that means sometime between September and November, though certain types of grass, like St. Augustine Grass, do better with aerations in late spring and early summer.