Whilst not the most comfortable of shoes, they can be slipped on over gardening boots without much difficulty. They usually have adjustable straps so will fit almost any shoe size. This particular machine is a lawn scarifier by default, but has a separate drum you can interchange that is designed specifically for aerating your lawn. Swapping the drums is quite easy – they’re secured in place with an Allen key. However, this electric aerator doesn’t penetrate as deep as many other options. The deepest you can set it to is -9mm below the surface, and you can also set the lawn scarifier up at a working depth of -3mm or +3mm.

Although a fair amount of manual work is required to use this lawn aerator, it allows you to be very precise, ensuring you don’t poke too many or too few holes. It also has a foot bar, making it relatively easy to push the aerator deep into the soil. You wear these aeration shoes while also wearing regular shoes – there are four adjustable velcro straps you use to secure them in place. It’s important that you do up the straps correctly, otherwise the shoes might slip as you use them. There are no instructions, so it might take a bit of experimentation with the straps to find a setup that helps to keep them secured. Secondly, the fact that they are on the bottom of your feet means that your whole body weight is helping to push the nails into the ground ensuring that you get good penetration of the soil, something that can be a problem with push powered roller aerator products. We recommend using the Sun Joe without the included collection bag, as it is fairly small and fills up fast, requiring interminable emptying. Also, this is not a machine for large lawns, as the manufacturer strongly advises using an extension cord no longer than 100 feet. This product was easy to assemble and the instructions weren’t totally horrendous, which is usually the case these days, and the adjustable handles and collection bag all fitted on without any bother.

Powered Machinery

The AL-KO Comfort 38E Combi-Care 2 in 1 Scarifier/Aerator allows you to scarify your lawn in a separate process before you aerate it. Removing the lawn thatch that stands as a barrier between the grass and the soil lets the spikes on the aerator roller go fully down into the ground. This combo model has a 38cm working width with 24 steel spikes on the aerator Swardman has left the handle bare, rather than including some type of cushioning. This makes pushing down a little less comfortable – we would recommend either using gardening gloves, or relying exclusively on the foot bar to push the tines into the ground. The plastic shell of the Vonhaus electric aerator isn’t up to the same standard as the Einhell model, but I suppose that is to be expected for the lower price. The wheels are decent enough though, even if I don’t understand the reason for having the rear wheels much smaller than the front ones. If you have hard, clay soil or water puddles in the grass after rain, then you should choose a plug aerator like our best overall, the Brinly-Hardy 40-inch Tow Behind Plug Aerator. By removing larger pieces or plugs of dirt, plug aerators can help nutrients penetrate more easily into the roots of the grass. If the soil is sandy or loamy, then the more narrow puncture of a spike aerator will give you the aeration needed. For example, the Agri-Fab Spike Aerator is a great tow-behind spike option.

A good rolling aerator will have a telescopic handle, which you can adjust to change the height to suit depending on how tall you are.To proceed, the Greenkey rolling aerator comprises 40 tines 45 mm each to ensure deeper penetration into the soil for better aeration and healthier grass growth. Since it is a push lawn aerator, you will have complete freedom of movement and will be able to keep aerating as long as you've got the energy to do that.

It’s best practise to aerate your lawn now in late Autumn, as that will give your lawn a few weeks for it to recover before winter strikes. By using this type of tine aerator, it will allow water and air to circulate better through it. It also ensures heavy rainfall won’t ruin your lawn, which can easily be caused by waterlogging. Fitted with a 300-mm roller, the Greenkey rolling aerator covers quite a wide area at a single path. However, it best suits for aerating smaller and middle-sized lawns since it is not powered by electricity. If you do decide to treat larger areas, it will be a more challenging task that will require more time and effort from you to complete it, given its manual operation. You will only need to do this once or twice a year so the cost should be minimal. We have found with these that they only come in solid spikes so you would lose the advantage of the hollow spikes. That makes it a balance between labour and getting the optimum result. Assembly isn’t overly complicated, but takes slightly longer than you might expect. This is because the collection bag needs assembling and its frame can be difficult to insert. Therefore, putting this aerator together takes around 30 minutes. Great if you’ve got the lawn size that warrants it. Anything over about 500 square metres is going to be tough with manual aerators. Your choices whether buying or hiring are:It’s also an easy machine to assemble. It takes around 15 minutes to put together and all you need is a Phillips screwdriver.

However, this spike aerator still takes a bit of effort to push. It’s still best to use it when the lawn is slightly wet. The core of the plug will be left on your lawn and you have several options how to deal with them. You can either sweep them up and put them on your compost, or you can let them dry out and go over them with your lawn mower with the grass collection box removed. The latter will break up the plug and spread the soil over the lawn acting as a top dressing. Before you consider what type of Lawn Aerator is best suited for you, you should take into consideration that there are two main methods – Spike Aerators

Sarel Rolling

The lawn aerator shoes might not be as effective as hollow tines but they are very easy to use. Just remember you need to use a gentle stomping motion instead of your normal walk to get the spikes to properly penetrate the ground.