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Cutting the grass is about a third of the job. This section is the other two thirds: getting product onto the soil evenly, and getting air and water into soil that has stopped accepting either.
It is also the section with the worst naming problem on the site. Retail listings file dethatchers, scarifiers and spike rollers under "aerator", and they solve completely different problems. One published number separates them immediately, and almost nobody quotes it.
The tools here are simple machines, which is good news: the specifications genuinely tell you everything, and the arithmetic is straightforward.
In this section
3 pages under Lawn Care. Every recommendation is built from published specifications and arithmetic you can redo — we have not tested these units.
Best Spreader
Best lawn spreader for fertilizer and seed
Spread width decides how long the job takes. The passes-per-lawn math, worked out.
Best Aerator
Best lawn aerator (and why most of them are not aerators)
Core aeration pulls 2-3 inch plugs; dethatchers work at 0.4 inches. Which one you need.
No photoTop pick
Agri-Fab 48" Tow-Behind Plug Aerator (45-0299)
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guide
Doing your own lawn care: what to do, and when
Four jobs, the right order, the right season. The sequence matters more than the equipment.
The number that sorts aerators from dethatchers
| Tool | Published working depth | Solves |
|---|---|---|
| Agri-Fab 45-0299 plug aerator | Up to 3 in | Soil compaction -- pulls cores out |
| Sun Joe AJ801E, raking | 0 to 0.4 in | Thatch sitting above the soil |
| Sun Joe AJ801E, scarifying | -0.4 to 0 in | Heavier thatch, surface prep for seed |
| Spike roller | Varies | Very little -- it compacts soil around each hole |
A factor of seven between core aeration and dethatching. They are not alternatives to each other.
Compaction shows up as water pooling or running off, thin grass along walking lines, and soil you cannot push a screwdriver into. Thatch is a spongy brown layer between the green and the soil that makes the lawn feel bouncy. Plenty of lawns have both, in which case the order is dethatch, then aerate, then overseed into the open holes — the full guide is here.
Spread width is the only spreader spec that changes the job
That is the entire practical difference a dual rotor buys, and it compounds with lawn size: on 20,000 square feet it is about 56 passes against 67. The spreader page covers hopper capacity, edge control and the broadcast-versus-drop decision.
Edge control is a runoff feature, not a tidiness one
A broadcast spreader throws product in a circle, which means a pass along a driveway puts fertilizer on the concrete. That is not just untidy: anything landing on a hard surface washes into a storm drain with the next rain. EdgeGuard-style mechanisms block one side of the pattern so you can run the boundary pass without it.
If your lawn is heavily bordered by beds and paths, a drop spreader is the better tool despite being roughly three times slower — it puts product exactly where you steer and nowhere else.
Technique beats equipment here
- Calibrate on a hard surface first. Over-application burns a lawn and cannot be undone.
- Shut the hopper before you turn. A turning spreader deposits several times its normal rate in one spot, and it shows for weeks.
- Aerate in the growing season, into moist (not wet) soil, and leave the plugs on the lawn to break down.
- Overseed immediately after aerating, while the holes are open. They are the best seedbed your lawn will have all year.
What is coming to this section
Lawn care is deliberately a reserved section at launch: the structure is built, two roundups are published, and the rest arrives as the content engine works through the keyword clusters — sprinklers, seasonal care, and the fertilizer cluster specifically. Nothing about the URL structure assumes the current page set is final.