Renting an AERATOR and OVERSEEDER/SLICE SEEDER (2023 Update)

[blueman]

I am planning on overseeding my lawn this week and would like to rent an AERATOR and an OVERSEEDER/SLICE SEEDER. I only need to do about four thousand square feet

My first inclination was just to rent from the local Home Depot but then I started wondering about whethere there are any differences in quality and effectiviness.

So are there differences and features that I should be concerned about? For the relatively small lawn that I am doing is just going with the Home Depot likely to be good enough or should I be looking at more professional tool rental shops?

[No]

I cant help you on pros cons of different machines. I curious as to what climate zone you live in? Or at least what state. isn't it early to overseed? I want to do the same but I was going to wait until Late September, early October.

[Gideon]

I assume that you are talking about a core aerator. There are several different styles of core aerators. The revolving drum style is the most common, but it is also the most difficult to use. I don't know the name of the other style.

Using the revolving drum aerator is a bit like your first experience using a rototiller over a hard clay soil that has well established sod on top. The machine tends to run away from you and it doesn't corner easily.

The approach which has worked well for me is a bit like the method that I developed for using a riding mower. Operate the device in large, overlapping ovals so that you are never (or seldom) turning sharp corners and there definitely are no 180 turns. Even so, the tiller is going to attempt to get away from you sometimes.

Just don't get over-confident. And remember that the machine will also tend to run away from you anytime that it can't bite into the soil and it tend to run over the top. The most frequent situation for this problem is when you go over tree roots.

I had the device mastered rather quickly on my first rental, and my in-laws say I ain't too bright. So you should do fine.

Good luck, Gideon

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blueman wrote

I am planning on overseeding my lawn this week and would like to rent an AERATOR and an OVERSEEDER/SLICE SEEDER. I only need to do about four thousand square feet

My first inclination was just to rent from the local Home Depot but then I started wondering about whethere there are any differences in quality and effectiviness.

So are there differences and features that I should be concerned about? For the relatively small lawn that I am doing is just going with the Home Depot likely to be good enough or should I be looking at more professional tool rental shops?

[roggiemac]

tried renting 3 different slice seeders to overseed existing lawn, none of them sliced deep enough to touch the dirt

[invalid unparseable]

Use a lawn edger to aerate the lawn. Then spread the seeds using a manual spreader.

Lawn edger

Step on it with your boot, as seen in the second photo on the website. It will go into the soil easily, no matter how compact the soil is, then push the handle away from you and then pull it back. It will create V-shaped opening in the soil. Then move the edger over and repeat. You can decide how far apart the V-shaped openings are, according to your assessment of your need.

Trust me, because of the half-moon shape of the blade, it is very ease to step the blade into the soil, then rock the handle back and forth to open a V-shaped groove (a few inches deep) into the soil.

You may also choose to put the seeds into every groove you have opened with the edger before moving to a new location. You may also control how deep the groove is by stepping how deep into the soil with the edger.

[TimR]

I've seen those at yard sales and didn't know what they were for.

Do they really aerate? Seems to me that when you create the V shape hole, you did it by compacting the soil on each side, which is what you don't want. ??

[Scott Lurndal]

This works much better. But it's a lot of labor.

[invalid unparseable]

When you have stepping stones or concrete on the edge of your lawn, the grass has a tendency of creeping over the stones or concrete. You can use the "edger" to insert between the soil and the concrete to tidy up the edge of your lawn.

An "edger" is originally not intended for this purpose, but I have used it to aerate the soil and make room for over-seeding the grass.

When you have opened up those grooves in the lawn, air and water can reach deep into the soil. Eventually the grass seed, grass clippings and other organic matter will fill the void but air and water will still go in easily.

Since the long handle of the edger gives you very good leverage, you can actually push the handle down more to lift the top layer of the turf off the bottom and then let it down again. That will really aerate all the way to the bottom of the top layer of the soil. Remember not to flip the turf over.

[micky]

FWIW, I gogogled slice seeding existing lawn and the only links I've looked at are

a 14 minute video about just my problem. Nimblewill, the state extension said it was. When I bought it to a couple garden shops, one said ????-grass and another said vvvvv-grass, I forget, but the situation was the same whichever it was. Very hard to kill and it comes back. (and the poison to kill it was $27 a bottle and was only for 100 sqare feet. But the guy in the video seems confident. I'm only half way through.

Also

[Clare Snyder]

could crank it down far enough it acted like a roto-tiller!!!! That said, after slit seeding and watering for a month virtually no new grass came up. The expensive grass seed refused to sprout!!!

[trader_4]

Some will get lost that way. But the removed plugs provide good, loose topsoil for the majority of the seed to mix with and germinate.