Aerating?

Type of grass??

Are you renting a machine?
Plugs - people sweep them up, blow them off, or even vacuum them. Or, they leave them! (I don’t recommend leaving them in the lawn).

If you’re not able to pull a decent core then you might be a year away from aerating. It may be worth $100 to try to amend your soil with Air-8 and Humic DG. If you go this route, alternate each on a monthly basis.

The seeding question is throwing me off. Are you in the South?

Mowing - yes, mow before. Maybe a little lower than normal. Then aerate, then top dress with sand or a sand compost mix. Then fertilize, Then give the yard a good bit of water. This is the standard practice.

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I always leave them. Is this bad?!

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I certainly wouldn't say it's bad. Just not my preference. From what I've read a sand topdressing following aeration provides drainage benefits.

I have a smallish area and a strong blower so I don't mind blowing them into a low spot.

I am paying someone to do as part of my yard maintenance.

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Do you still have any questions?
I’m in the process right now and hope to be finished by tomorrow.

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I am in NW Arkansas. I had been throwing out some bermuda seed each summer to areas that were not growing good. I have read that seeding was recommended after aerating. I was expecting to have to go around to pick up rocks, but not the plugs. My lawn looks the best mowed at 3", but in my area it is recommended to be mowed between 1 1/2" to 2 1/2" tall. The shortest I mow it is 2" due to scalping.

Being I am paying someone to do this hopefully they rake up the plugs.

I don’t understand, removing the plugs. I thought that was part of the purpose was to allow plugs to flake apart, and essentially create a loose lower top piece of soil.

Removing the plugs is so that they don't "flake" apart (highly unlikely IMO, depending on current soil compaction) and fall right back into the holes you just created.

Fwiw, I aerated this morning (manually) and just moved the plugs with the leveling rake to low areas. Of course a lot of it breaks apart, but it’s not like there are no holes left.
About to top dress with bio char and sand.

The Scalp. About .75 to 1”



Will probably continue to make adjustments over the next day or so before I add fertilizer.
Put in about 8 hours today

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I had been throwing out some bermuda seed each summer to areas that were not growing good. I have read that seeding was recommended after aerating.

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Over seeding Bermuda is not a common practice. It’s not growing well in places because you keep it so tall. How often do you fertilize? How many lbs of Nitrogen do you put down per year?

Heavy fertilizer with adequate water and frequent low mowing will prevent you from ever needing to reseed.

But if you can’t go lower than 2” without scalping, then leveling is the first thing you need to address.
Take some dirt off those high spots and fill in the low ones.

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But if you can’t go lower than 2” without scalping, then leveling is the first thing you need to address.
Take some dirt off those high spots and fill in the low ones.

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I had my yard leveled with sand a year ago. I have a sloped yard with a side slope in spots. I grow rocks. I have to walk the yard before I mow to remove the rocks that pop out. The worse areas that is not growing good is packed very hard with equipment when building the house. This is where I hope aerated helps the most.