Just came to say your dirt is gorgeous.

No. Yards rarely need aeration desperately. Just do it in fall. The internet has over emphasized how important it is. I’m not saying it doesn’t help. It does. But everyone seems to think the answer to all of life’s problems are aeration.

I’d do some things to that dirt, DIRTy things.

My rule is no machines (besides lawn mower) on my yard until fall. Otherwise you run the risk of tearing up the lawn, higher weed pressure, stressed grass, etc...

That soil looks great btw. I'm used to see brown clay.

in chicago. did an overseed project in the fall. lawn looks absolutely amazing from the surface but suspected heavy compaction and now that we're getting a deck put in, this looked kinda concerning to an amateur.

was really hoping to hold off on aeration until the fall but if some of this newer grass will have a better chance of surviving the coming summer with aeration in spring instead, will get it done. also wondering if one of those liquid aerator products might suffice as a holdover until the fall.

I wish my dirt looked like that

Might be better to take some cores from random spots versus just this one reference to really know.

attract more earth worms

If that’s your edging, ideally you want to see a lot of roots further down popping out. I see a few but too far up

Aeration is completely natural as the lord intended lol

Just put down some soil treatments.

Damn you have nice soil. I have sand. It sucks.

Jealous of this dirt. Been trying to turn a shady clay slope into a lawn.

Depends if your cray and planning on overseeding like me. I'm in the same boat as you. I aerated last year late spring when I moved in to start my lawn renovation..I checked on it just now still seems compacted...i dont think its that concerning unless your overseeding but I won't aerate until fall and I'm looking into a liquid solution (air8) because manual aeration looks makes it look horrible lol it's like big goose poops everywhere.

My main goal Is to eradicate my weeds especially this crazy spurge that's infested everywhere.

I have a lot of bad areas still so my plan is to detach a little deeper which kinda loosens up the top alot and makes it less compact imo..could be wrong..but any way dethatch in spring.. fill and seed desperate areas and leave the aeration and over seed for fall ( last stage of my renovation)

Aeration is not for every lawn. Yours looks fine… unless you want weeds! Just water consistently and you’ll be golden!!

Forbidden fudge

No.

thanks for the replies everybody. appreciate the compliments about the dirt/soil lol not the response i was expecting. was more so referring to what seem like very shallow roots everywhere but not many of the comments seem to point to that being of concern at the moment. going to hit this with something like air-8 in a sprayer this season and then in late summer/early fall will get around to the machine aeration as i have no idea if the previous owners ever did this.

plan for now is to monitor temps, get some humichar/soil amendments down, seed a few stray spots that are sparse but not the whole thing, use triple action build for seeding, and then spray post emergent in those areas as needed while getting the areas that are already solid/full blanketed with a light dose of pre-emergent. given so much of this lawn is newly overseeded late last fall followed by winter, sort of paranoid about a heavy app of pre-emergent as i don't want to hinder the roots too much before they've had time to deepen much. might go with the lightest possible application of andersons barricade (apart from the couple spots i'm overseeding).

going to chip away at leveling over this next growing season in some low spots without going too crazy, and come next fall, going to go absolutely all-out.

Hold up a minute… is there only 10cm of soil and then a pebble-bed? Also the little soil there is seems to be too much organic material and needs more sand in it. So, yeah, I would recommend aeration and sanding.

Do you live in Ukraine? That is incredible soil. Dirt porn!!

Aerate in the spring, loosens up soil and when you fertilize it gets deep in the core and helps with the roots

Looks like some thick clay. Core aeration and put some gypsum down. It's a slow process to soften it. Don't mix sand. You can also top dress with compost/organic matter that will also help.

No. What are you expecting your clay to look like? If it has a bunch of voids in it, it'll just pack under your feet. This is how materials with high amounts of clay look. It doesn't look like you have any thatch at all. Aeration is to allow air into your canopy so that the thatch and crap can decompose rather than accumulate.

I have a similar soil type where I am. The main problem that I found is that when I would water it, the water wouldn't really permeate, it will just sit on top and then evaporate off. To address that, I topdressed with sand. That way the water can permeate down a little and be sheltered from the direct sun.

Wheres the beef?