In smaller gardens, you can use hand-tool plug aerators to save money . These are relatively slow to use, but work well on small patches of lawn. You might even consider spiked shoes so you can walk around the garden whilst aerating the soil.

One of the best things about manual aerators is how little faff they are to use. This manual aerator can be taken out of the box and used instantly, there’s no cable to worry about nor complex assembly. It’s very lightweight and easy to store. Plus, it makes it easy to work freely around the garden with no power cord to worry about. Low cost and easy to operate, roller spike aerators are quite popular products, but there are some common issues. Firstly, some of the cheaper models are not all that well put together and may be a bit on the flimsy side. On top of that, they are sometimes too lightweight and so the pines hardly penetrate the ground without some alteration to the design to make them heavier, or manually pushing down on the handle. They are all pretty similar in design: Roller spike aerator – they are all pretty similar in design Thatching is a particularly sore point for lawn-owners that aeration helps with, as the action brings thatch-decomposing micro-organisms from deep in the soil up to the top layer. Depending on the type of aerator you’re going to choose, there are several key features to look for: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: This lawn aerator won’t do much in terms of removing thatch, but it’s a cheap, easy way to improve aeration on a small lawn. The handle on the Einhell RG-SA lawn aerator is both height adjustable and foldable, so getting a comfortable working position isn’t too hard, and the folding helps to make storage much easier. The soil in your garden over time may become compacted through children or pets running around on the lawn, or from general garden use. Compacted soil has a hard time circulating itself, which over time will starve the roots from the essentials required for healthy growth. Because the spikes on the soles of these seemingly ingenious shoes are solid instead of hollow, they more often push the soil sideways or downwards when they’re in the ground, which compacts the ground even more.

The gist of it is that human feet are just too small. A shoe doesn’t impact enough space on the ground to make a difference truly, and the spikes on the shoes can serve to compact your already suffering soil further.If you’ve got a small area of lawn that needs attention, a hand tool like the Yard Butler ID-6C Manual Lawn Coring Aerator is worth considering.