When to DETHATCH a LAWN and HOW to do it EASY! 

Colorado here, thanks for the great demonstration and explanation. I have used the blade attachment and although it worked well it also destroyed some of my lawn. I did not know how to judge if it needed dethtatching until seeing this, and should not have used it everywhere. Same thing with aeration, as I found you do not need to do it every year in these drought t conditions. Much appreciated.

Nice one John. I'll be referring people to it because Im tired of speaking the same words to dozens of people weekly 😄 Edit: sidenote, I once couldnt sell a total renovation so I my core aerator shallow enough to just poke holes in a seriously thatch plagued lawn deep enough to barely touch soil, if at all. Went over it maybe 6 or 7 times. Didnt add anything except some seed, and nutrients, since I removed minimal soil. It popped, and by the following spring the un-plugged areas thatch layer was 'normal'. I love when thatch eats itself, seriously. Even a month later the lawn looking good.

Great explanation of the thatch I use my Sun Joe every spring and fall aggressively 2-3 full passes it does make a difference

I think you’re asking the head in your SunJoe to do more than it’s meant for. If you’re trying to get deeper down you need to put in the heavier bladed dethatching head, not the rake head. You also have about 6 tines left on that thing. I’m on my second SunJoe in 3 years. No fault of the machine. I was using mine for grading my back yard. I beat the hell out of it. If you watch Robbie from Premier Lawns out of Northern Ireland, he always uses a commercial grade dethatcher which removes huge amounts of debris. Big fan!

Love the new graphics and the fancy video editing of the two “JPs” working side by side. 😊 Thanks for sharing. We are getting warm out here now- 80’s this week. Cool season grass here- I dethatched in the fall. I may need to wait and do again in fall. Any issue with that?

Better wash up with a pileahose 👊🏻great video!

Thanks for this. I'm in Florida and was thinking about de thatching, but the dewpoints are starting to get up there and I think everything will break down on its own.

I think maybe you should have used the scarifying blade that would have gotten down to the soil a little better and I think pulled out more more thatch than debris.

I’ve always swapped in the ‘scarifier’ head on the SunJoe and do a final pass with the raking tines after and it pulls quite a bit of thatch.

I already put some pre emergent and a little fert down in the lawn. If I were to do a dethatch now, would I have to reapply?

Great video. Love that dethatch rotary blade for cool season types, but I won’t ever use it on my st. Aug. looks like it would totally annihilate it.

I seen a video from Pete the other day and he was using a verticutter on his bluegrass, it also bagged it while cutting, I suppose that would work well if a person had access to that too? As always, a great video JP

I just don't ever get a thatch layer nor debris buildup, and I think I would kinda like at least some? ...I mulch mow everything back into the lawn, and have a lower pH; so it's like the grass cannibalizes itself? anyway, most of my lawn areas/types came back with a bang this spring(short mowed fall and timed the last fert just right, and then short in spring with just a light raking starting really early almost two months ago now) and was all dark green and thick with hardly any dead or dormant grass blades(slight bit of snow mold and 'mushy' grass that rotted away) which seemed different? maybe it is that we had kinda weird snow cover this year(really only two snows that stuck, and they were both a foot deep) but right now we keep going from either dry and hot(70F to 80F) to wet and cold(down to light snows still) which somehow is making my grass grow like crazy in Iowa - like I'm trying to mow twice a week, which sometimes I can't if it is too wet, and now I've had to raise the cut up ... nothing done on the main lawns yet, no fert/weed, water, nor dethatch/verticut, just mowing as often as possible ... so starting to wonder what would happen if I just "let everything go" for a year? and used no products or even over seeding and just mowed, but then I can tell one area is looking like it wants some N already; altho if I let the lawn 'sober up' and clean out, I wouldn't give it anything without a soil test to make sure it really needs it ...idk, just a strange early spring for me so far - I'm assuming everything will get back to normal May/June and then a sun baked drought will hit hard again starting in July until late Oct like last year

I plan to renovate my lawn at the end of the summer a bit, dethatch,/scarify overseed and top dress.... would you recommend dethatch and scarify or one or the other? I was planning to scarify for sure to get the seed down, but was wondering if i should dethatch first to clean up lawn debris etc. thanks in advance

So I can use my electric dethatcher in the Spring and Fall year after year if I just want to clean up dead material off the soil? Second, can I do that even if the turf has come out of dormancy and is growing without damaging the turf?

You have a fairly new lawn. Why is there that much thatch so soon? Thanks for sharing

That’s a great idea with the Dthatch mower, blade . Do you know if they make it for a Honda mower? 👍🏻🇺🇸🇺🇸

I got the sunjoe it's a bit of a pain I have to slowly bring my TTTF to about 2 inches but it rips alot of good blades I'm on the fence if i should cut lower but I dnt wanna destroy the fescue going to low

I have someone coming out on Saturday to dethatch. Did I wait too long? My lawn is probably 70% out of dormancy out here in tooly

Expecting some lawn destruction with my newly purchased dethatching mower blade this weekend 😁 There's way too much of a spongy, interwoven layer of old brown grass that is choking the new growth. Added to that, an increasing growth of moss across the lawn thanks to the seemingly never ending wet warm weather we're having in the UK this year so far. It's an old, well used lawn that has had minimal maintenance over the years. Guess I could just rip it all out and start again but like the challenge of trying to improve what is there already.

Can detaching run the risk of churning up dormant weed seeds, like poa or anything else unwanted that is dormant in the soil? If so, what would you suggest to combat this? A rookie DIYer asking. Thanks in advance.

Ha! I beat Striperman 😎

If planning on doing a fall reno, would you recommend dethatching at that time instead of spring?

When would it be appropriate to use the D-Thatch product?

Did you do 2 passes w mower and 1 w sunjoe?

Boy I miss the intro music😊

Half your tines are gone on the sun Joe 😆. It didn't stand a chance!

Im going to get irrigation. Would you get a normal system or irrigreen ? @Lawncology