Bumps in lawn

Hey All, My lawn is very bumpy from ants, etc. I am in MN and imagine I would use a pull behind lawn roller maybe a day after it rains?

Is this a bad idea and would I do it now in fall or wait until spring?

Thanks

 

Sure they're not worm castings ?

 

I'll get some pics and post here to see what they are.

 

I don't like lawn rollers because they compact the soil. I tend to use a core aerator and move the plugs into the low areas.

 

Wait till spring. The winter and cold will naturally heave the soil. Although Stickshift isn't wrong, a regular roller will do no harm, but aerator is nice. The trick to maintaining a very flat lawn is to regularly roll the lawn every spring while the ground is soft.

 

If it turns out that the "bumps" are indeed worm castings, then I'd recommend power raking to take them down and uniformly distribute what is considered by many to be the world's best fertilizer.

 

Thanks everyone, I have already aerated once. Is power raking the same as dethatching? Is there a pull behind for that as I have a big yard.

I will plan to get a pull behind lawn roller for spring.

 

Others know better than I; but I'd venture power raking is similar to de-thatching, though less severe. A de-thatching might accomplish the same thing if set at the highest setting (just barely touching the soil) to only take off the "bumps". Actual de-thatching digs up the matted dead grass, and I don't have that problem.

For a pull behind Power Rake, your local Rental Shops may have such an item . . . . you don't need to use it but once a decade or so. I think buying one would be prohibitively expensive unless you're handling a Golf Course

I have accomplished a satisfactory result on the 2½ - 3 Acres that I mow by mounting a couple Arnold "Universal" spring loaded Power Rake blades on one of my riding mowers; but it wasn't ideal, because they weren't quite long enough, and left what I call "Mohawks" (6-8" strips) which required me to overlap my pattern to cover the entire area. Still, me less than $50.00 in materials.

I never regret the work of the worms: they come up and eat my clippings, and they fertilize, while the Robins are constantly hunting for the worms themselves, and also leaving bird guano behind. All I do is cut . . . . and occasionally bust up the castings. Pretty good trade-off.

 

I'll still be interested in seeing a close-up of these "bumps" if you ever get the photos.

 

Here are 3 pictures. The first one shows it the best being 2 bumps with a leaf I put between them.

https://imgur.com/a/gVvUQ

 

I still think they're Worm Castings . . . . are they little mounds about ¾" to 1" in height ?

And the grass plants around them are alive and doing well ?

My Ant Mounds are much higher (2-3") and dryer . . . . and the grass around them is often dead. And I don't think I'd see two Ant Mounds so close together.

These Worm Castings are barely visible to the eye; it's my feet that detect their presence.

I see people paying nearly $60.00 per Cubic Foot for Worm Castings . . . . they're known as Black Gold among gardeners. What you don't need is so much in those small areas, so distributing the wealth might be the thing to do.

The Roller idea might work somewhat; but most of what you're doing is smoosching the pile, and crushing the tunnels that the worms used to come up and get your grass clippings and leaf debris to take under to eat, and then return to the surface to deposit the digested end product. And the same tunnels serve to aerate your soil too. I don't know; but I think I once read that the worms might be a bit more active in the fall, cleaning out their burrows in anticipation of the coming winter.

I think it's a sign of a healthy lawn . . . . but it's bumpy !

With the pictures, someone else here may be able to better identify the source of the bumps ?