is May 22 too late to aerate?

[mishatx]

I want to aerate and top dress my (mostly st. aug w/ some bermuda) yard, but I'm too lazy to dump 75 bags of compost on the yard, so I got some quotes to do it.

ABC gave me a rate not much higher than it would be to buy the dirt and rent the aerator myself, so I thought I'd go with them. They told me the earliest they can come is May 22, or thereabouts.

I expressed concern that this might be too late, and was told "there is no too late if you have a sprinkler system." I don't, so after a conversation with her manager the phone rep told me that "only June and July are too late".

I'm not sure I believe any of that. I don't want to further stress my yard by covering it in dirt and poking holes in it when it's 95 degrees at night unless it's a good idea.

Experts? What do you think?

 

[NickDanger]

I doubt there is any "too late" to aerate. I've never understood the reason to top dress so I wouldn't comment on that.

 

[mishatx]

If you had my "soil" you would understand the reason.

 

[NickDanger]

Do you have bad or no soil?

I am frankly so sick of yard work I can't see straight. 3 straight weekends of 10 hour days (not including this past weekend where I drained and pressure washed a cement pond). Now I have to go plant a transplant Sotol. Them suckers bite.

I would definitely pay for someone to do the work in my current frame of mind. I can't imagine 3 weeks is going to make that much difference. Ask MrMyke.

 

[suttree]

My front lawn is completely screwed due to the rampant fall touch football games between the neighborhood boys. I have resigned myself to a front lawn that looks like a goat track.

 

[mishatx]

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[NickDanger]

That sounds like a bad recipe. Frequently, the homebuilding process causes a hardpacked clay layer that ensures a shallow root system. Limestone is obviously a greater impediment.

The Sotol only bit me about 4 or 5 hundred times. *****.

The curly leafed yucca was more kind.

 

[Mrmyke709]

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[NickDanger]

Compost makes some sense, but many people just use topsoil which has a bunch of weed seeds installed at the factory. I failed to notice in the original post that compost was the idea.