Lawn Aerator - Which Is Better?

I am thinking of buying a Lawn Aerator and just wondering which one is better, my lawn is small about 50 sq meters but its seen better days and is full of moss, so I want to give it some TLC before the winter sets in.

Below are the two types that I have seen but never used one before.

 

For a while I was a gardener for a 'big house' on the outskirts of London. The lawn was a shambles. I went over it with a spiker that removes plugs of soil and not just compress the soil around a hole, I then raked up the plugs and gave the moss a damn good thrashing! and collected about a builders bag full (made beeeaaauuutifull potting compost in about three years). spread sharp sand over the lawn and brush into the holes.

A going over with an old kitchen knife to cut out the perrenial weeds, and when due a quick feed, the householder could not believe it was the same lawn.

Cheers, Tony.

 

I would say the one on the left is the better one as it removes plugs of soil as Tony said. But it is hard work. Having said that there is nothing wrong with an ordinary spiker. I stood watching a groundsman tending a bowling green a few weeks ago and he was using a giant spiker that wasn't removing soil.

I wouldn't consider 50 square meters a small lawn when you have to work it by hand, I'd be inclined to go for the spiker, the righthand picture.

 

Not sure if it helps but I read this on Wikipedia...........think my minds made up on which one to buy now.

Core/plug aerator vs. spike aerator
A core/plug aerator removes soil from the ground and leaves the core on the turf. This reduces compaction in the soil, and the holes can stay open for a long time. Then air, fertilizer, and water will be able to reach the roots, thus benefit the grass. Meanwhile, the soil cores left on the turf will help break down the thatches.
A spike aerator creates holes in the ground by pushing the soil sideways using wedge-shaped spikes. This increases soil compaction, which is detrimental to the grass. Since there is no soil removed from the ground, water will make the compacted soil around the holes to expand and close up the holes in a short period. The lawn will return to its pre-aeration condition. Therefore the benefits of aeration will not be fulfilled.
Any serious lawn aerating should be done with a core aerator.

 

I don't think the "rotary" one will actually go into the ground (unless you lean on it, but I reckon that will be hard work - probably no less effort to just use a fork!).

I Disagree with Wikipedia - I would recommend that you don't leave the cores on the lawn. Use the back of a rake to "gather" them, then shovel them up, and stick them on the compost heap, or make a pile to rot down. Otherwise I think they will form something akin to wormcasts and the effect they have on smothering the grass underneath.

Don't expect to be able to actually brush sand/top dressing into the holes - that would be a labour of love! Just spreading it on the surface is fine, rain etc. will "persuade" some of it into the holes, and the holes will provide drainage, and air to the roots, in any event.

 

I too disagree with wiki - you should brush sand into the holes so then they don't close up and to increase the drainage capability.

 

I had the one on the left £10 from Wilkos , absolutely useless it just clogged up all the time . When I was golfing they use to core the greens every autumn , and remove the cores. Maybe you can find someone with a machine who can do it ?
ahhh post is from last October, advise is prob a tad late !

 

I done this last October and since then the lawn has looked much better
But with the dry weather I noticed where Mrs Intel hangs her washing on the rotary
dryer the grass was brown, so watered it and then noticed that the water was not draining away, so I tried to aerator the lawn with a fork and the fork just bounced off, I guess where is soil is so compacted with her weight...lol

So I drilled a few holes in the lawn with a battery drill and a 10mm drill bit about 8 inches
deep, Then I realized that using the drill was soooooo much easier then using the Aerator, is this not doing the same job as the Aerator? after all you are still removing a plug and
I would agree the drill bit could be maybe be bigger, say 12 - 15mm?

Overall I would say that drilling holes into the lawn is far easier then using the aerator, does anyone know what the difference is please?

BTW I am not shy of hard work and I remember aerating the lawn last year with the 4 pong
lawn aerator and it was hard graft but even in todays heat of 30.C using the drill was much easier then the lawn aerator.

 

Drill sounds all right. "Hollow Tined Aerator" is supposed to remove a core of soil which you can then collect and put on the compost heap, (which then may get filled in with sand / fine dressing that you apply to the whole lawn). I guess a drill will just leave the spoil scattered around the hole? and that might fill it back in again over some weeks ... although a consequence of doing it when the lawn is concrete may well turn out to be an excellent choice

 

Re leaving cores on lawn. If you have good quality loam type soil then I see nothing wrong with leaving cores on as form of top dressing I do this regularly and cores have disappeared in 2 weeks.
If on the other hand you have a heavy clay soil I would collect as they will not decompose and leave unsightly muddy patches on your lawn for a very long time.
Aeration is a spring or autumn job when grass is growing vigourously and can take advantage of air and moisture getting down to roots.

 

I disagree with wikipedia on this occasion too.

At my last house, I snatched the lawn from the jaws of death and got it looking pretty good. Even the old boy next door who was a keen and very competent gardener remarked on how it hadn't looked that good in years.

I had no special equipment. I made holes by spiking the fork in at intervals and giving it a jiggle. I gave the surface a very brutal raking, with a regular rake, not even a grass rake. I got half a dozen bags of sand, and I had the nephew round who was four at the time. We made up a game, where I build sand castles on the lawn and he smashes them down. By the time we'd finished the lawn looked more like a beach than a lawn, and it remained like that for about a week. The grass just grew through the sand. Over about 3 months, the lawn greened up nicely and although still not perfect, it was a lot better than it was, and a lot better than many lawns that people seem happy with.

 

Leaving the cores on is pretty bad practice to be honest. It's just doing half a job and calling clumps of root matter, thatch and weed seeds a "top dressing" is laughable. It's trying to make an excuse for not doing a proper job, which I'm afraid is rather endemic in the lawn industry.
The practice of leaving the cores on has come over from the US, where warms season grasses are mown at 3 to 4 inches, so getting the cores off is nearly impossible, and you don't see them in the long grass anyway.
However, with cool season grasses that we have on the UK, they are mown much shorter and leaving the cores on not only looks terrible, makes a mess of your lawn for the next couple of weeks, makes it a nightmare to mow (and ruins your mower - talk to any professional gardener about the trouble they cause) but also increases thatch, brings long dormant weed seeds to the surface and makes a nice little nest for them to germinate in!
Do a proper job. Rake the cores off.

 

Think we will have to agree to disagree on this see attached link which endorses leaving cores on http://www.bayeradvanced.com/articles/how-to-aerate-a-lawn
It is not in my opinion a right or wrong practise it depends on soil conditions.

 

Its from an America site though? (Dunno if aimed at UK, but spelling is American, and the products advertised alongside are USA products, hard to tell from the pictures whether they are hot or cool season grasses).

Either way I'l like a hollow tine coring machine that discharged the cores into a hopper, rather than putting them back on the lawn for me to pick up in a separate operation - do they exist?

 

I think if I left plugs of soil all over the lawn, the missus would be pretty displeased when lad and I come in the house with them stuck to our shoes and trail them all over.