Dethatching

Just wanted to share my experience dethatching a lawn. For context I live in northern Alberta.

I decided that I was going to try and dethatch my lawn this spring. I’ve never done it and was intrigued. I bought a cheap dethatcher from Home Depot and began my lawn

I had already done my back yard and did one pass, and it probably could have used two.

So, I decided on two passes on the front. After I was done the two passes I was absolutely terrified that I had just destroyed my front lawn (as seen in first pic). I was pretty stressed out that my front lawn was a goner but I continued the process. I got some grass seed (I believe Kentucky blue) from my local nursery and a cubic yard of compost (second pic) to spread over the seed/yard. It worked out that the cubic yard would be about 1/4” deep with the space I had.

I set up two sprinklers with a timer, set to water twice daily for 10min per session. I also spread Scott’s starter fertilizer about two weeks after overseeding.

Well, when you see people say trust the process, trust the process! My lawn came back stronger and thicker than ever! So if you are thinking about trying it out for yourself, I can’t recommend it enough. If anyone has questions feel free to ask!

TLDR; used dethatcher, thought lawn was wrecked but it actually worked amazingly.