Garden lawn

One thing you should make sure you do after you have aerated your lawn is to remove all the cores from the grass, if you do not do this you could find that your lawn can become even more compacted than before. When using a lawn aerator you will remove small round cores from your lawn, this leaves holes in your lawn, which air and water will penetrate to provide the nutrients your grass needs to grow healthy. If you find that the root length is very short and thin then this can be a sign of too much compaction, the only cure for this is to use a lawn aerator to relieve the compaction. The second way is to take a spade and cut a small slice of the end of your lawn about a spades depth, then check to see if the roots of the grass is the correct length they should be according to what type of grass you have used for your lawn.

There are two ways you can tell if your lawn is over compacted, the first one is if your lawn is looking a bit thread bare and generally unhealthy then this could be the cause of compaction in the soil.