GreenkeyRolling Lawn Aerator, Manual 300mm Spiked Roller, Green, Mixed Materials, Compact Style

Great product! Spikes are nice and long. A bit of faff constructing and you may have to tighten the spikes or pole after a few uses which you’d need to monitor otherwise you will be scouring the lawn for a missing nut. Easy to use (especially on wet ground) pole is a good length at just under 6ft I don’t feel I suffer whilst using and the time it takes to complete the lawn is just as quick as mowing if not quicker !!!

I got this to improve the life of a compacted lawn, it arrived and I had two key bolts missing for the handle... I had a small refund, but no replacement for that... So had to figure out a solution myself, a pair of 50mm M2 bolts and we were in business.Now during assembly I had to use my own hollow ended ratchet set to get the bolts in well enough, the provided flat stamped steel spanner was woefully inadequate for the task; especially as the nuts are all nylon lined and so the bolts cut into and seal themselves into place, this makes it very hard with the dinky toy spanner to get them all on tight.But once together sufficiently it was very simple to use, roller along and back, slightly ossilating ones grip to let the pins go into and out of the ground.Now you don't get perfect holes you of course get scratches, so it's perhaps more scouring than you'd like on an ornamental lawn. But let you grass grow to 2-3 centimeters and then go for this, it cuts into the compacted root layer and allows you to water and put fertilizer and improver directly to the soil sub-strait, which was my whole desire.I ended up, after three months use and work, getting my lawn greener, more weed free and looking splendid.It helped with breaking into and neutralizing brown patches from our pet dogs and the grass really did spring into life quite dramatically after what must have been a decade of not being tended to by the prior owners of our property.So the effect of this thing is fine and well and good, just the construction is a little janky.

I have been aerating 600m^2 of lawn during the past week, using fork-styled hollow-tined and solid-tined equipment. It takes a very long time! With around 150m^2 left to go, I found the hollow tined kit was lifting relatively few plugs of soil. This is probably because I am continuing when the ground is too wet, but I reasoned that this was now acting like very large-diameter solid tines and probably causing compaction of the ground by pushing large volumes laterally. The thinner, solid-tined fork would reduce this, but it’s equally labour-intensive and so I decided to try this roller instead. I realise the tines are shallower, but the prospect of forking this area 1 or 2 times each year is unwelcome.The roller arrived today and after some fairly simple assembly, I copied other reviewers’ recommendations and added a 10kg weight-plate and got started. This isn’t as easy as simply pushing a lawn-mower and it takes a bit of grunt and perspiration, but I covered the area twice (orthogonal directions) in around 90 minutes. By contrast, the equivalent area would have required around 12 hours using the forks. I realise the reduced depth and the solid tines will not be as effective as the hollow-tines used in the right conditions, but with this roller the lawns are likely to receive aeration each spring and autumn and the hollow-tine exercise can proceed at my leisure and perhaps be repeated every 3 years. The roller coped without problems and as far as I am concerned, it has already paid for itself.Update: on the 2nd use the handle broke irreparably. It had dawned on me, that the procedure is vastly easier when the roller (+10kg weight) is pulled, rather than pushed. Unfortunately, the plastic handle is not able to cope with this. I intend to repeat the exercise next spring with a metal pin fed through the handle-holes in the shaft and a couple of gym-handles or similar attached. This may tear through the shaft, but time will tell.

This lawn aerator is well designed and built. Unlike many other comments, I had no problems in putting the various pieces together. Even the spikes were easy to fit. So, I assume, the manufacturers have either recently improved the design, or maybe I was lucky to have an easy to assemble unit?Nevertheless, I do agree with lots of comments about the lack of weight. It is best to use this after rain, or if no rain, at the very least, a good wetting with a sprinkler or hosepipe. As it rains nearly every other day in England, this should not really be a problem. Having said that, I still think the addition of some weights would make the task of lawn aeration easier.I notice some comments about adding weight lifting disks to the bottom of the handle bar. I think this is a great idea. But as I did not have any of these, and they are quite expensive to buy, I thought I use whatever I could find in my garage workshop. Almost all the material used was found surplus to requirements left overs from previous jobs. (However, I doubt the cost would have been unacceptable even if all had to be purchased from DIY stores or Amazon.So I design and built a cradle out of 2m x 25mm aluminium flat bars, which are held together with small 5mm nuts and bolts. I use a 45cm bungee cord to secure a lightweight breeze block to the cradle. The breeze block can easily be fitted and removed after use for storage in a few seconds. The weight of the breeze block is about 7kg 15lb. This seems to be enough weight to sink the spikes fully into the lawn after rain without any extra downward pressure, which would be necessary without any weights. I have a few mini paving slabs to add more weight if the ground becomes too hard. Don’t use too much weight as it becomes more difficult to use. Only just enough to get all the spike lengths to penetrate the ground, so try different amount of weights to get it just right if the ground is a bit on the hard side.The supplied small spike protectors are easy to lose, so I found some 4mm (inside diameter) by 6mm (outside diameter) clear plastic tubing in my garage, which I cut to size to fit completely over all the 30 spikes to be attached when it is in storage. Without these protectors, the spikes could cause an accident as they are very sharp.(I left the tubing on one of the spikes, which can be observed the photos.)