| There are three main types of hand lawn | | | | prongs should be sufficient. The best hand held |
| aerators. There are rotating spike aerators, stake | | | | aerators will have a foot handle for you to push |
| aerators, and manual core aerators. A spike | | | | the aerator into the lawn giving you more |
| aerator does not work as well as the other two | | | | leverage with your body weight. Given that extra |
| types of aerators since the holes made by them | | | | weight, you should to produce decent cores that |
| are fairly small, and not too deep. However, they | | | | will last a long time. To lengthen the effect of |
| work well in soils that do not have too much clay | | | | aerating, you can add peat moss and gypsum |
| in them, but have a lot of thatch buildup. Core and | | | | just after aeration to your lawn. In clay soils, core |
| stake aerators are great for clay soils. Overtime | | | | aerators are better than a hand spike aerator. |
| they strengthen roots to create healthy lawns. | | | | A lawn expert at the University of Georgia, Dr. |
| Hand aerators are best when used in hard to | | | | Robert Carrow compared the effectiveness of |
| reach areas of the lawn, small yellow spots, or | | | | different lawn aerators. He found that while spike |
| for lawns that are very little. Often even people | | | | aerators had little effect, core and plug aerators |
| who regularly hire professionals to aerate will have | | | | enabled deeper rooting and water extraction of |
| a hand aerator to get the corners, go over | | | | the grass by 25%. A spike aerator has the most |
| troubled areas of the lawn, and do small touch | | | | effect in a lawn with little clay content. A manual |
| ups. Keep in mind that manual lawn aerators are | | | | plug and core aerator works similar to mechanical |
| for touch ups and small areas. Aerating a large | | | | lawn aerators. Both take cores of soil from the |
| lawn by hand will take several days and will not be | | | | lawn which helps the grass roots to develop and |
| worth your time since usually you can hire a | | | | deepen allowing them to find more access to |
| professional to do it for only $50 to $100. | | | | water and other minerals & nutrients |
| The best manual aerators are core aerators, two | | | | essential to a healthy lawn. |