Is there a better time in the year to aerate the lawn?

Thanks!

Lark

For my two cents worth
 

Realize that this time of year workers are looking for work.
So there is temptation to sell people jobs needed or not.

First of all IF, you need dethatching IT SHOULD BE DONE NOT NOW BUT IN THE SPRING. Reason, to do it in the spring, IF AT ALL is that your grass is growing and is better able to recover and fend off weeds.

Post # 10 asks if you have St Augustine or Empire Zoyzia.
It is an important question. St Augustine has runners on top of the soil surface. If you dethatch it will pull out a quantity of live grass. With Zoysia the runners are below ground so the damage to the live grass is far less.

Someone mentioned doing it by hand. There is a tool for this. Used to be called a push pull rake. Unless you have a small lawn or are willing to do a small section at a time, it is a lot of hard boring work.

Fertigator came out to give me a quote of their services. They recommended that my lawn really needed a De-Thatch. Cost to be about $800. Seems high to me.

Yes $800.00 dollars is way to much not sure how big your yard is but that is way to much. The hardest part is raking up the dead grass.

I am interviewing numerous lawn care companies. Two have suggested that I really need a De-Thatch. They were able to reach down and pull up dead grass. One quoted $800 and another $250. As stated in this thread, it seems a good raking could get up all loose grass. How do I get in touch with Adam who is mentioned in this thread.