Manual Lawn Aerator

Lawn aerator is an essential for a healthy and great looking lawn. It basically allows water, air and nutrients penetrate through the soil and reach roots of the grass. If your lawn is showing signs of compaction, then an aerator can be the best way to restore its health and look. There are two basic types of aerators, power and manual. You can purchase or rent a power aerator or manual aerator from a home improvement shop. If you are interested in doing this task yourself, then here's more information about the manual lawn aerators.

Aerator For Whom?

Basically those who have ample of time to work on the lawn, can opt for this method and do the task themselves. The amount of time you need to invest is more, hence this factor needs to be considered. Also, will you be able to invest that much energy, which is required to do this task? If you are healthy and have enough stamina for working with a manual tool, irrespective of the fact that your lawn is big enough ,then you can go for it.

Advantages

Manual aerators are best for gardens that are not too large. These are convenient enough to use and definitely less expensive than the power aerators. One of the advantage is that it allows you to work on small areas at a time and especially it becomes easy to work on corners and other areas that are difficult to reach with large equipment.

Aerator Types

Manual lawn aeration is a simple process of creating small holes in the lawn. The type of holes made depends on type of aerator, which are coring and spiked. Spike aerators are best for loamy soil, as these make smaller holes by pushing down the soil and are hence not much deeper. But these holes might not last longer. Coring aerators are best for clay soils. While spike aerator put holes into ground, coring aerators make holes by removing plugs or cores of grass and soil. The coring aerator is hence considered to be a more beneficial model.

How to Use?

These aerators have a long handle and prongs that are attached to a cross-piece at the bottom part. You need to hold the handles and push the prongs into the ground. They will be actually pushed while you step onto the cross-piece. Now pull back and move to another section. The number of prongs might vary according to the model. But those with 3-4 prongs are difficult to push in and pull out of the ground.

Aerators penetrate the lawn best when the soil is moistened, so you need to have a soft ground before you start working on it. So, either you can try aerating your lawn after a rainfall, or you must moisten the soil by watering it. Well, water daily, starting a few days before you are going to do manual lawn aeration.

Best Time to Aerate

You must aerate the lawn once in the fall. Avoid aerating in summers. Basically, this can actually damage the condition of lawn as the weather is very hot. Another period when you must avoid aeration is when weed seeds are prevalent, because these can cause weed infestation.

So get the aerator and work to allow more air to circulate through your lawn. This will ensure that all the essential plant nutrients and minerals along with air and water reach the roots of your grass. What's more - this process of lawn care will also help you remove build up of thatch. With proper lawn aeration, you can have a healthy and green lawn ready.