I wouldn’t advise keeping the cores on the lawn. What about the cores? Should you remove them? That way you can replace those that get damaged. Sometimes it’s easy to hit rocks and other debris in the ground too, so you want to get one that can penetrate well. Getting one with tines that can be removed is a good idea too. If you get a quality aerator, it will be less likely to break and the force you transfer will be efficiently used to penetrate the ground requiring less effort on your behalf. I prefer one that pulls cores that are 4-5 inches deep. This has a solid metal construction and robots tines. I like the Yard Butler lawn coring aerator(link to Amazon). Some aerators pull a core with a greater diameter while others pull cores that are greater in length. Some hand aerators have more of a tubular construction, and size of the cores you pull can vary. Not all hand aerators are the same and some have certain features which are better than others. The good ones are made of metal and the tines can be sharpened in order to facilitate an easier entry. The hardest part of using a manual aerator is pushing it down into the ground, especially if you do have compaction. If you take the lower inch of these plugs, you’ll have an excellent sample. Manual aerators are excellent for taking soil samples of your grass to send off too! Pulling a core with a and aerator works way better than just digging up some dirt. Whether this is worth or not, really all depends on the size of your lawn and the amount of time and energy you have. You can be certain you’re going to get a nice consistent pattern in your lawn, and the tines will usually be able to get down further into the ground. Sometimes, you can actually get better results using a hand aerator than hiring out some machine. For example, if you have stepping stones in your grass, using a hand aerator on the grass in and around these would be an excellent idea. I also like to use hand aerators near to paved areas where a large aerator machine can’t get to.

If you have construction debris under your lawn, or you get certain spots that are consistently dry, a hand aerator can be great here. If you have some hot spots where a larger aerator may not be able to get to, it’s good to have a hand aerator at hand to tackle these spots. Hand aerators work best for small areas of your yard. If you’ve got problematic areas in your lawn, you can choose to pull out the cores and leave the holes open, or you can fill them in with some organic matter which can help to hold more moisture in the ground. I find you get much better results with this method too. More air and water can get deeper into the ground this. In general, I do prefer hollow tine aerators that leave deep holes in the ground. You would be much better to go with a hollow tine aerator in this case. In some cases, spike aerators may even cause more compaction. Solid tine aerators tend to be more suitable for sandy soils and less effective for clay-based soils. I’ve found both methods to work quite well. You can either place your foot through the brace and push down or you can push on the top to drive the tines in to the ground. This opens the area leaving small holes that can be up to several inches deep depending upon your model. If you’re using a hollow tine aerator, pulling fork out of the ground removes plugs of soil called cores. You apply pressure by using your foot to cause the forks to penetrate the turf. Each model may be slightly the difference but the general in which you use a hand aerator remains the same. Handheld aerators are quite simple to use. Some have hollow tines and others have solid tines.

There are a couple of different types of hand aerators. In this article, I’ll be discussing hand aerators, which are the most traditional kind. You’ll want to address these areas to keep the grass healthy. These areas maybe around clothes lines, entry and exit points onto the lawn. Some soils compact more the others, but often times compaction is caused by heavy objects and foot traffic. It works great to alleviate compacted areas and to create vertical channels of unimpeded root growth. It helps to allow more air, fertilizer and water to penetrate deeper into the ground. There are several different types of aerators, some are machine based while some are operated manually.Īerating is great thing to do for your lawn. If you’re looking to aerate your lawn to relieve compaction, you need to be using an aerator.

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Hand spike aerator