
However, these shoes are a one-time investment that’s going to help you with several hundred cycles of yard aeration and, if maintained well, even for a lifetime.
PLUG OR SPIKE AERATOR BETTER PROFESSIONAL
INEXPENSIVE & FUN ALTERNATIVE - These lawn aerator shoes offer a superior alternative over professional gardening services which might cost you fortunes on lawn care and maintenance.Even better- wear them while mowing your lawn so that you accomplish two important tasks simultaneously! PROFESSIONAL-GRADE AERATION - Wear our Abco sport lawn aerator spike shoes and walk around to cover the entire length of your garden for a way greener, healthier, and more beautiful lawn and grass.These are the ones I have been using this season You may need a heavy lawn aerator machine, but it is also a great idea to buy a good pair of spiked shoes for a lighter job once in a while. You may need to leave your oscillating sprinkler watering your lawn for some time to make it easy when you start aerating with these shoes. The spikes are usually thin enough to reduce the resistance you’ll get when pushing them into the ground. You can use them to aerate a fairly small yard just by walking all over it. Spiked lawn aeration shoes are made of narrow, sharp spikes protruding from the sole. Depending on the size of your lawn, you can choose from a variety of them, including the following: Spiked shoes Lawns that are not badly compacted can be fixed with a spike aerator. If it is too thick, you may need to rent a mechanical aerator and dethatcher to help you get rid of the problem. However, if you used a plug aerator even once in the last two seasons, you may need to spike-aerate just once a season to get rid of minor compaction problems.Īlways test the thickness of thatch in your lawn two times each season to determine if it is too thick and causing compaction.

It is best to spike-aerate your lawn 2-3 times every season because the results do not last long. Does spike aeration work?Īffiliate links and images pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on: How often should I spike aerate my lawn? Some mechanical spike aerators are curved and can provide very deep penetration – sometimes up to 9 inches deep without causing the mess of plugs on your grass. Instead of removing soil plugs from the core of your lawn, the aerator’s sharp tines pushes soil down and to the sides. Spike aeration is great, but it gets rid of soil compaction on a short term basis. They only poke holes in the ground to get rid of compaction. Unlike plug aerators, spike aerators do not remove any soil from the ground. Spike AerationĪ spike aerator makes holes into the ground to make the soil loose. In this sense, using a plug aerator is one of the best ways to ease soil compaction because the plugs are removed from the core to make the soil loose.
PLUG OR SPIKE AERATOR BETTER MANUAL
Plug aerators are mostly mechanical, unlike spike aerators that are mostly manual (except for the ones you hook on your lawnmower). It is also a suitable choice when you want to get rid of minor thatch that’s causing compaction. In summary, lawn stabbing is not the same as lawn aeration.Mostly mechanical plug aerators are available and suitable for small, medium, and large areas of yard soil decompaction.Īs you can see from the differences above, you may want to use a spike aerator if you have a small yard. The holes left behind have rough sides and their large interior surface makes lots of places for air and water to penetrate. When a core aerator passes over a lawn, it pulls up thousands of soil plugs. Golf courses sometimes use spike aerators but they do so because their soils are usually sand-based and the spikes break through the water-repelling black layer under the sand. The spike aerator showed no effects on grass health. One turf researcher found that a core aerator increased deep rooting and water extraction by 25 percent. Unlike core (plug) aerators, spike aerators tend to compact the soil because they just push the soil out of the way as they pass over. Does that seem okay?Ī: Your timing is good but using a spike aerator won’t help your lawn and may even hurt it. I’ll wait until May, go over the yard very well with a borrowed spike aerator, and broadcast centipede seed and fertilizer.

Knowing it was too late to plant centipede seed, I broadcast wheat straw. Q: I had some work done in my yard in September.
