Swardman manual aerator

grassylawn

https://www.swardman.com/int/e-shop/garden-tools/fork-aerator/

Is it bonkers to get this to use on an area of about a third of an acre, most of which is compacted clay?

Zardoz

grassylawn wrote: »

https://www.swardman.com/int/e-shop/garden-tools/fork-aerator/

Is it bonkers to get this to use on an area of about a third of an acre, most of which is compacted clay?

Utter madness.

Your back will be broken from it and the tines on those manual ones keep clogging with heavy soil.

Hire a petrol aerator.

legend99

Zardoz wrote: »

Utter madness.

Your back will be broken from it and the tines on those manual ones keep clogging with heavy soil.

Hire a petrol aerator.

Hire petrol. 1,000,000%. Be cheaper than the cost of the heart attack you'll give yourself otherwise!!

ErinGoBrath

Used a cheap one of these on 50m2 of clay soil lawn. Constantly clogging and beyond exhausting, never again. Will hire one this year

grassylawn

Fairly clear cut so.

Their blog even says it's for places that you wouldn't use a powered aerator because of small size or inaccessibility.

phormium

I bought one of those, now not that expensive but similar concept. I have a pretty small lawn and it wasn't even useable on that!

The Continental Op

Its the clay thats the problem. I've used one very effectively on a 800 sq meter lawn on light soil. I did a small area everytime I mowed.

On clay to get any good results with any tool you need to pick your time carefully. Too dry and you'll get almost zero penetration and too wet and the plugs block up. A petrol driven slitter is probably a better option in clay but my preference if you have a lawn tractor is a towed unit. Something like this https://www.thegreenreaper.co.uk/lawn-tractors/towed-lawn-tractor-attachments/towed-aerators/agri-fab-45-0544-towed-spike-aerator even then don't expect much penetration. The advantage of the towed unit is its quick to deploy and use on a large area so you can use it several times a year. More expensive aerators have a stronger tyne with a better profile for ground penetration so go deeper.

Zardoz

The Continental Op wrote: »

Its the clay thats the problem. I've used one very effectively on a 800 sq meter lawn on light soil. I did a small area everytime I mowed.

On clay to get any good results with any tool you need to pick your time carefully. Too dry and you'll get almost zero penetration and too wet and the plugs block up. A petrol driven slitter is probably a better option in clay but my preference if you have a lawn tractor is a towed unit. Something like this https://www.thegreenreaper.co.uk/lawn-tractors/towed-lawn-tractor-attachments/towed-aerators/agri-fab-45-0544-towed-spike-aerator even then don't expect much penetration. The advantage of the towed unit is its quick to deploy and use on a large area so you can use it several times a year. More expensive aerators have a stronger tyne with a better profile for ground penetration so go deeper.

I used a blade like that on my lawn scarifier a few years back and it did more harm than good to the lawn.
Tore it to shreds.
The rake unit on the scarifier is much more useful I find.
Neither will do a similar job to a proper core tine aerator though which removes cores, reducing compaction and allowing air into the soil to help drainage and root growth.

The Continental Op

Zardoz wrote: »

I used a blade like that on my lawn scarifier a few years back and it did more harm than good to the lawn.
Tore it to shreds.
The rake unit on the scarifier is much more useful I find.
Neither will do a similar job to a proper core tine aerator though which removes cores, reducing compaction and allowing air into the soil to help drainage and root growth.

If it tore it to shreds then I suspect there might have been a bit of a thatch build up and or very coarse grasses. I'd only bother on what was a fairly good lawn to start with.

100% agree on the rake units. Best of all is one mounted on the front of a lawn tractor so you can vacuum up what the rake lifts out as you cut the grass. Snapper used to have a great set up for that but it was dropped along with some other really good stuff when Briggs and Stratton took them over.

The problem with the cored aerators in clay soil is getting deep enough into it. Towed units have the weight but no real power to do the job and the small petrol units have some power but not enough weight. Its not until you get up to pto powered units on a tractor (with turf tyres) that you can guarantee success. Then the problem is the volume of cores you have to clear up.

If you are going to all the bother of taking out cores then its well worth top dressing with a sharp sand mix (raked in with a lute) so you fill the holes in with sand.

grassylawn

I don't have a lawn tractor. It sounds like the unit I found available to rent wouldn't work on my soil. I am nearly 100kg and literally bounce up and down on a garden fork to get it in deeper than a couple of inches. Something that you push along by hand just isn't going to penetrate through the hard part of the soil. At least the manual one would work, even if it would be an impractically large job.

Any suggestions about what to do in this scenario? Hire a lawn tractor and a pulled unit? I imagine the cost would be significant.

Zardoz

The Continental Op wrote: »

If it tore it to shreds then I suspect there might have been a bit of a thatch build up and or very coarse grasses. I'd only bother on what was a fairly good lawn to start with.

Yes, that part of the lawn did have a good bit of thatch and the grass was poor quality.
I probably did it a bit too late in the year too, it was too dry and the grass couldn't recover.
I scarified in early April last year using the rake scarifier (Aldi) and that was much better.

The Continental Op

grassylawn wrote: »

I don't have a lawn tractor. It sounds like the unit I found available to rent wouldn't work on my soil. I am nearly 100kg and literally bounce up and down on a garden fork to get it in deeper than a couple of inches. Something that you push along by hand just isn't going to penetrate through the hard part of the soil. At least the manual one would work, even if it would be an impractically large job.

Any suggestions about what to do in this scenario? Hire a lawn tractor and a pulled unit? I imagine the cost would be significant.

Give up would be my advice. Just keep the grass cut as regularly as you can and never cut too low.

I've no idea where you'd get the machinery that would work. Its the sort of specialist gear that golf courses use. If the ground is that bad a towed unit even piled up with ballast weights won't do it. I've seen towed units bend and break with all the weight piled up on them and still not really penetrate much.

legend99

There's no real "home diy" version of the aerator is there? Like I have a scarifier unit as I have a petrol Qualcast 35 and i bought the scarifier cartridge. Bought an electric rotavator in Aldi which is fine for home use as well. But I've never seen a home version of a hollow tine aerator?

The Continental Op

legend99 wrote: »

There's no real "home diy" version of the aerator is there? Like I have a scarifier unit as I have a petrol Qualcast 35 and i bought the scarifier cartridge. Bought an electric rotavator in Aldi which is fine for home use as well. But I've never seen a home version of a hollow tine aerator?

You can get a small petrol engined version but they are too expensive for most people to buy but can be hired example.

legend99

The Continental Op wrote: »

You can get a small petrol engined version but they are too expensive for most people to buy but can be hired example.

How much is the smallest petrol one?

grassylawn

I might get the manual one with a view to using it on the most walked-on areas of the grass.

Holy Diver

The Continental Op wrote: »

You can get a small petrol engined version but they are too expensive for most people to buy but can be hired example.

Would you recommend the solid tines or the hollow in this? I notice that the sold is more expensive to rent

The Continental Op

Holy Diver wrote: »

Would you recommend the solid tines or the hollow in this? I notice that the sold is more expensive to rent

I don't get that? It might be the solid tynes break more easily?

It would depend on your soil. If you are only doing it the once and the conditions were good then I'd go for the hollow as it does a better job altogether. The downside is the clearing up afterwards.

See how easy it is to push a garden fork about 5-6 inches deep into the lawn in different spots if too hard then I'd go for solid if its reasonably easy the hollow.

You do need to pick your time to do it. Ideally as the soil is drying out but not bone dry. If weeds come out of the shrub beds easily then the soil conditions would be good. You should know what it like to try and weed boarders when its too dry or the soil is too wet - much harder. Same for the lawn.