I've been reading books on lawn care and they all recommend that I
aerate and dethatch my lawn in the fall because I live in Michigan and
have cool season grass. I would like to do these things this coming
spring. By doing so would I be gaining any true benefit or even
possibly harming my grass? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

"daniel99mp" <drobinson5631 [at] wowway.com> wrote in message
news:1140389760.981529.211770 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> I've been reading books on lawn care and they all recommend that I
> aerate and dethatch my lawn in the fall because I live in Michigan and
> have cool season grass. I would like to do these things this coming
> spring. By doing so would I be gaining any true benefit or even
> possibly harming my grass? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>

yes.

"daniel99mp" <drobinson5631 [at] wowway.com> wrote:
> I've been reading books on lawn care and they all recommend that I
> aerate and dethatch my lawn in the fall because I live in Michigan and
> have cool season grass. I would like to do these things this coming
> spring. By doing so would I be gaining any true benefit or even
> possibly harming my grass? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
No problem with doing it in the spring as long as the soil isn't too wet.
Don't put down your pre-emergent crabgrass control till you're done
disturbing the turf. If you do it in the fall you can follow it up with an
over-seeding.

Why do you want to do it out of season? If you dethatch now, you will
undoubtedly spread around weed seeds of all types.. Especially Crab and Wire
grasses. If you plug aerate now, you will plant those weed seeds better than
Ma Nature does.
Spring and early summer are for maintenance of existing lawn and existing
weeds. If you have a compaction problem, spread gypsum now and plug aerate
heavy in the fall or late summer in Mich., let the "wounds" heal over then
overseed.

"daniel99mp" <drobinson5631 [at] wowway.com> wrote in message
news:1140389760.981529.211770 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> I've been reading books on lawn care and they all recommend that I
> aerate and dethatch my lawn in the fall because I live in Michigan and
> have cool season grass. I would like to do these things this coming
> spring. By doing so would I be gaining any true benefit or even
> possibly harming my grass? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>

Advice I was given (and also saw on an ask this old house episode), was
to dethatch in the spring and aerate in the fall. Not sure on the
reasoning behind the timing of the dethatching; however, you aerate in
the fall as opposed to the spring to prevent driving the weed seeds
into the soil.

-rw
________________________________________________________
Sherborn, Massachusetts | http://www.addieryan.com/

Has anyone tried one of the traveling sprinklers that is of the hose
reel type. I am looking at the Rapid Rain Model 860 by Mobile
Irrigation Technologies. I saw it at http://www.rapidrain.com and am
comparing it to Microrain. Seems to be a much better bang for the buck
and its made here in the ole US of A