The best way to tell when your lawn needs scarifying is to look for thatch and moss buildup. When it gets bad, you’ll want to clear the debris to allow your lawn to breath. Both these machines look like a lawn mower, and work in a similar principle – you push them along your lawn to achieve the desired effect. Both are used to improve the health of your lawn and garden. If you’re just looking to remove moss and thatch buildup from your grass, then a lawn rake will do the job. However, if you really want your lawn to look great, and think that aeration could help with your soil, then it’s worth going for a scarifier instead.

The Flymo lawnrake has been designed to be compact and the foldable handles help make it easy to store away. It measures 66 x 46.6 x 39 cm and weighs 12.3 kilograms.
The 12 metre cable length is longer than average and the extra few metres comes in handy. Take your replacement kit (you can get these from a hardware store, your lawn raker manufacturer, or online) and insert the new tines carefully into their holders. While you can clear a lot of moss with a rake, cordless scarifiers are going to do a much better job, especially if you have a lot of thatch as well. An electric model of scarifier may make the job much more easy as well. If your garden is on the small side, or if you’re only seeking a lawn scarifier (without the aerator) then it may not be worth splurging on Hyundai’s 2-in-1 Lawn Scarifier. However, I consider this the best lawn scarifier and aerator machine overall. It’s definitely a good option for medium or large gardens. Electric corded aerators: Lightweight, quiet and often at the budget-end, these are best suited to small and medium-sized gardens with a power supply. Most come with a collection box, which is a useful, time-saving feature, but the cord length can be restrictive as well as potentially hazardous.You can use a depth gauge or a raker guide to measure the rakers. I prefer the guide because it’s faster and more accurate. They are also cheap and can be found in most parts stores. However, some chain makers will also ship their products with a free guide. When it comes to choosing whether you go for an electric, cordless or petrol scarifier, consider the pros and cons associated with each type: As you’d expect from Bosch, this is a pretty sturdy scarifier – it comes with a 2-year warranty for peace of mind when buying. However, the grass collection box is a little flimsy. With a sizeable 1500W motor, this machine is pretty powerful. It feels faster than the others I tested, and it’s also noticeably wider (36cm instead of the standard 32cm) meaning that it won’t take you quite as long to scarify your lawn. Not only will it save you time, but it does a great job too. Once you find the right height setting for your lawn, it’ll pull up moss and thatch without damaging healthy grass. It doesn’t leave the lawn quite as churned up as some of its competition, yet it effectively removes what it needs to.

The compact size really will make lawn care much easier and really makes the entire experience much less dependent on you struggling with a heavy over sized lawn rake. Is it smaller and lighter than the Flymo? well, smaller yes, but roughly the same weight. The integrated collection box does make the Flymo smaller for storage but the comprise is the smaller collection box and the need to empty more often. Bosch have tried to compensate for the larger box by making the collection box dismantle into two pieces for smaller storage. Agriculturean agricultural implement with teeth or tines for gathering cut grass, hay, or the like or for smoothing the surface of the ground. Replace the circular spring washer from Step 2, and flatten it down slightly so that it grips the spindle. The grass box on the Bosch ALR 900 does seem to be a little flimsy which is surprising for Bosch, having said that it does not seem to affect the performance in any way. I believe the collection box feels a little flimsy as it comes in two parts. Bosch have done this to reduce the storage space required for the collection box as it can be split into two sides when not in use. If your lawn is much over 300m 2 and needs scarifying then the only way of making the work less arduous is to use a petrol scarifier. If you’re caring for a fine or ornamental lawn only a good quality sharp petrol scarifier will be able to cut through the thatch cleanly without excessive damage.At some stage, nearly every lawn is going to benefit from being scarified. It’s just a question of whether now is the right time to clear all the debris, or if there’s not enough for it to be worth doing just yet. When should I scarify my lawn? This lawn has a large thatch buildup and desperately needs scarifying.