How a PRO fixes a dead lawn

you got a dead spot in your yard or you just can't get the grass to grow as good as you would like it to grow. It doesn't match up with the rest of it. As a professional contractor who has part of my job is to help people get their lawns restored after I've basically come in and destroyed them. I'm going to start with two of the most relevant pieces of information that I give my customers that I'm going to give to you and how I address restoring their lawn back to its former glory after the work is all done. So, let's just dive right into today's video. All right, guys. So maybe you have a dead spot in your yard and maybe it's a spot where you've parked a car and after you moved the car, it's no longer as thrive thriving as it used to be. Or maybe you had some work done and there's a clear trail of where the contractor left and you just want your yard to look the way it should have looked in the first place. Well, let me just help you understand something. There's two basic ways of repairing a lawn. It doesn't cover all the bases, but these two basic ways are your fundamental starting points. The first thing you need to do is look down. Now, as we look down here, I've already repaired this lawn, and I will show you what I did to do it. But one of the things I didn't do yet is right here. Bear, I don't need the help. Can you please move? Can you move? Scoot. All right, quit licking my ear. Bear, will you please get out of here? All right, bear. Go away. Ah, get bear. Go sit down. Sit. Sorry about that. You see this? This is thatch. This is your enemy. And this doesn't make a difference whether you've done construction or not. Thatch is a buildup on the surface layer of the soil that suffocates the lawn. And this is just thatch is nothing more than dead grass that's sat in one spot. And now the grass, it creates this mat. It creates this mat that doesn't allow All right, baby. You need to get out of here. It creates this mat that doesn't allow the grass to germinate or grow. It's basically suffocating the lawn. So, the first thing you need to do is figure out is is my lawn suffering because it has thatch or is it suffering because it has compaction. Those are the two biggest things that you've got to understand. And the easiest way to understand is by looking down. And as you see this, this is all thatch buildup plus compaction buildup. My lawn has both of the worst possible things it can do. To really fix this lawn, I need to scarify and remove the thatch. Now, there's a number of different ways you can scarify and remove that thatch. You can get a deatcher. The first thing I'm going to tell you to do is don't hire a professional. You don't need them. All you need is a deatcher. You can get handheld deatchers. And a deatcher is like a rake. Let's go show you what a deatcher is. A deatcher is like a massive rake on steroids. It goes into the dirt and it removes all of that thatch and buildup and it allows your lawn to breathe again to come back to life. Here's the fundamental thing you got to understand. It's only scratching the surface layer. When you dethatch, you're simply removing the excess gunk built up on the top, allowing the soil to get that sunlight and allowing the seed to receive the light it needs to grow. So, it's not necessarily the end all be all cure all by starting with deatchching. But if your lawn has thatch buildup and it's spotty and it's not full and you really want that golf course looking lawn, check the thatch and make sure that that's not building up and creating your problems. Remove that thatch, hike it out, and watch your lawn come back to life. But there's more to this. So, let's go and check out let's go next. Let's let's go look at what a detacher actually looks like. All right. So, let's take a closer look at what a deatcher actually looks like. This one right here, you can see it's got these tines right here. And this is designed to get in there and get thatch pulled straight up and and remove it from between the grass blades. Okay. So, this one hooks up to the front of a lawnmower. But here's a second deatcher right here that hooks up right to your nose pickers. You don't need special tools. I would get a very stiff spring rake and just get in there. If it's a small area, just get in there and rake it until you know that you've got that all cleaned up. But that doesn't solve all your problems. You've got to understand what created the problem in the first place. Is it compaction or is it buildup and suffocation uh of thatch? So maybe you have a spot where you've parked a car in the past or you've got uh Okay, here's a great example right here. I've got a road going in that I've driven into right there. And you can see that it's suffered. So it's not the grass isn't the same quality there. That's from compaction. And it's a completely different piece of equipment, a completely different technique and tool. And you still don't need a professional to do this. So, let's show you exactly what I use to fix something like that, and then I'll tell you how you can go ahead and go do it yourself. Now, I know I've told you a couple times already in this video, you don't need a pro to do this. Because what I'm telling you doesn't require special skill. It requires a special tool. And the special tools anybody can use, rent, gain access to. It's not the end of the world. The only thing that requires anything special is a tiny bit of specialized knowledge, which is the goal of today's video is to give you that specialized knowledge to know whether you should be doing deatching or core aation. That's it. Once you understand which tool to use, it's no different than using a pair of scissors to cut a piece of paper or any other tool that you use for any other reason. It's just wash, rinse, and repeating. activating that tool and then implementing that with the knowledge you've gained through this video. So, let's go out and show you the next tool that you need and that's core aation. All right. So, now this machine is called a core air raator and it looks identical to a lawnmower which that is and in fact it operates almost identical. It requires almost no knowledge whatsoever but it fundamentally does something different. It actually pulls plugs out of the ground and it loosens up the ground. Now, here's what you do need to know about core arration. Typically, for a heavy claybased soil where it's compact and dense, you want to go about 3 to 4 in to get that soil loosened up. If it's a sandy based soil, you can go 2 to 3 in. But on extremely compacted, dry ground, it may be difficult for that machine to penetrate three to four inches. So, you need to water the lawn. You need to moisten it up a little bit. That's why I am standing out here in Mother Nature's moistness. Going to show you guys exactly how we uh fix a a situation like that. So, let's fire up the machine. Let's show you what it does and then let's show you the results that it leaves behind and why that's important. Now, another thing before we fire everything up. It's a great time to overseed. So, some of them have uh a seed hopper right along with it. It's not necessary. You don't have to. You can use that or if you're I mean, if you're doing a big area, use that. But if if it's a small area, you can just hand seed it as well. But that loose ground, it's premium time to reed. So, if you're thinking about core air raating because you've got compacted, dense, dry ground and you're going through all that work, might be a good time to take it to the next level and throw a little bit of seed down at the same time. Now, this one is made by Toro. There's tons of these things and there's no mystery to them. Start it up and then you can actually choose your depth right here. I've got it at 3 and 1/2. So that's at 3 and 1/2 in. And once I step on this pedal, those times will come down, penetrate into the ground, and do the work for me. Bring it all the way up. [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Now, depending on which model you use, you don't want a core air rate while you're turning the corner. I mean, unless you rent it, then you can describe it like you rent it. But if you buy the machine, just be careful. I don't like the core area while turning corners on this particular unit. This is what we're looking for, baby. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. All right. This is clay. So, we wanted to go deeper than normal with this material, and I needed to have a little bit of moisture to be able to pull this off. And it's easier to let mother nature do it than for me to sit out here with a sprinkler. But you can see where this is allowing the soil to breathe and expand. So, as we shut this machine off so that you guys can hear me better, let's just take a look at what's happening with the ground. Uh, let's just pick a spot. So, we've corerated right here. We pull the plug out. Now, what happens is all of this ground can compensate and fill that area in. So, the whole ground, all of it, all the way around it now gets to breathe. Even though we only pull the plug out of an area, the rest of the ground through just natural processes can then shift and fill in. And the plug that's on the top that also disintegrates back into the ground. So as it's getting used up and weathered weathered and everything else, it just disintegrates and pulverizes back into the top. I always look at coreration before I look at deatching just because it has a deeper, more purposeful penetration that I typically find has a longer term beneficial effect than deatching. I pull the deatchcher out once in a great while. The core air raator, well, that gets used a whole heck of a lot more. Now, I told you not to hire a professional. You absolutely can. I don't want to take anything away from my fellow contractors out there. They're working hard to make a living. But if you're a homeowner and you're going to do this, the reason why I say just rent it yourself is because those machines are readily available. They run just like a lawnmower. So, you just got to get it to your house. But it gives you the capability of micromanaging your own lawn. Hey, I've got an extra dense area right here. I'm really going to help. I'm really going to focus on this area. Maybe I'll do double triple passes. It doesn't hurt. You can double up. You can triple up on those passes and really loosen up that compacted ground. And maybe you got areas in different spots that don't need it as much, so you don't have to concentrate on it so much. That choice is yours. Where if you hire a professional, you can ask them to do those things for you. And most of them are going to do that for you because most people are pretty decent folks. But nobody ever is going to do as good of a job on your project as you will yourself. Nobody knows your lawn like you do. Nobody knows what's going on in your own head like you do or how you want things done precisely the way you want them done. And when you rent that piece of equipment, you get to check off every single one of those boxes. That allows you to make sure that you're getting things done exactly the way you want them. And if a video like this has helped you out, hit that thumbs up button. And if you want to do something cool for me, go over and check out the Dirt Monkey shop. It's the way I now support myself. We have a phenomenal giveaway we're doing over there. We're giving away so many cool things. It's my way of giving back. I've tried to give my knowledge to my audience. I've tried to share everything I've learned, good, bad, and in between. But this takes it to that next level that I always wanted to do. And this helps contractors start their own business. The Dirt Monkey Shop. What we do is we've been giving away trucks and trailers and complete business setups. We've got one going on right now with a company called Durahal. So, if somebody wanted to get into uh the rolloff business, it's a one and you're done. We're giving away a truck. We're giving away a Durahal trailer. We're giving away dumpsters and bins. But the next one coming up, I'm just going to tell you, is the ultimate snowplow giveaway. We're going to give away a truck. We're going to give away a We're going to retrofit it with a plow. We're going to put we're going to do a lot lot lot lot more than just that. I'm not going to tell you because there's going to be a surprise, but it's basically you win that setup, you are in the snowplowing business the right way. That's over at the Dirt Monkey Shop. That's how you guys can support me. But if you don't want to go that far, just a thumbs up and a comment also does wonders. That's it for this video. I hope you guys enjoyed going along for the ride. And as always, I hope whatever you do, God blesses it. And while you're waiting for God's blessings, I hope you go out and get it. Meaning, don't sit there and do nothing. Try. Even if you fail, just try to make yourself better today than you were yesterday. Never give up. Never quit. And try to bring everybody up with you. God bless. And go get them.