Any place the grass dies due to winter could get a build up of thatch. If I owned a power rake I would probably due mine every year. I am curious to the type of rake you used that wasn't effective? The rake I use rips, pulls and cuts through right down to the soil line. I could take a pic of it later if you want. I rarely get my whole lawns raked in time and you can tell the places I missed.

FWIW, I use underground sprinkler heads above ground and have had them out for over a month. Even at -5C they froze, but not solid. I have had to wait till noon for my hoses and sprinklers to thaw enough to water. Yours are insulated by the ground and I would imagine it would need to stay well below freezing for the whole day (or more) to have problems now.

The guy on the QR77 gardening show only aerates every year, so that's what I do now. I have power raked before but it's very, very, very hard on the grass and it really truly suffers.

Thanks, SCG and shazam!

I think that I have too much thatch there as there seems to be a big and thick layer of dead grass. A couple of years ago, my grass was beautiful and green, but last year, it was not as much. I think it's time to get rid of that thatch! The company is coming to do so tomorrow but I don't know which rake they use....

What I used manually last year was just a metallic but bendy rake. It did rake up lots of dead grass but after working on it for a long time (with rather sore arms and shoulders too!) I found that there was still a lot of dead grass underneath. May be I just used the wrong manual rake?

Shazam, I also heard about people doing just aeration too. I need to find out more about that.... do you find that it also does diminish the amount of thatch too?

I will have to respectfully disagree with shazam. Power raking doesn't leave my lawn any different then when I rake manually, it is just a lot less work. I actually prefer to burn my lawn but that doesn't happen often as the conditions have to be right.

I would most certainly think you didn't have the proper rake. This is the rake I like but yes it is hard on the arms, especially if I try and tackle all 12,000 sq ft in one day, LOL!

Aeration does reduce thatch as you are punching a pile of holes into the matt...lol! Aeration is great and I used to do mine at least once a year. It really reduces compaction.

It hasn't been mentioned but you are over seeding every year aren't you? It should be done along with power raking or aeration. I also hope your not forgetting your fall fertilizer. It is the grasses breakfast, the most important meal of the day! You will find less winter kill and amazing green grass in the spring.

FWIW, I don't have a nice lawn anymore as the kids, dogs, power wheels, bikes and such destroy all my hard work!! I focus my energy onto other things. I plan on starting to over seed with a more traffic friendly grass but I am good at procrastinating.

SCG

ostrich,

The rake is a mechanical machine, similar to a lawn mower.

The problem with power raking in Calgary, as explained by the QR77 guy, is that there is a very small window in Calgary between when the ground's too wet to power rake (which pulls out existing growth), and before the grass starts growing, which is also when you don't want to power rake, as it pulls out new growth. Of course companies will power rake whenever they can.

And yes, you need the rake that SCG shows to properly dethatch manually.

I concur that it is all about timing. Which is why my lawn rarely gets totally raked, even by hand I will start pulling grass with the shown rake.

SCG

Thanks everyone for your great tips!

The power raking and aeration was done today. The lawn actually does not look bad at all, and it feels much less spongy when I walk on it. Perhaps I will aim to do aeration every year, but power raking just every other year or something like that? Thank you again!

We rake it by hand with the same rake as SCG.
The only thing I'm worried about is bringing in fairy ring mushrooms when aerating lawn from strangers...which we got about 15 years ago,..no more aerating since and lawn is fine.

How did you get rid of it Konrad? Curious to your technique.