Aerator that punches holes in the soil

irishproduce

Hi all,

I have terrible compacted soil.
In the winter the place just floods and in the summer the (like now) the ground just splits and cracks open all over the place.

I am assuming it is because of compaction.

In addition, the garden to the side then has been resurfaced and only parts are growing from seed.
So I figure an aerator such as the one in the video below will help me on both problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c54WSOI-MMc&t=430s

See the holes it punches at about 2:57, I want to do that on both lawns for different reasons.
I don't want a thatcher or raker.

Any idea where I can buy a non commercial machine like that and keep in the shed?

_Brian

Compaction May be an issue but soil type is an issue too.

Sounds to me like you have heavy clay soils. Very hard to improve this and aeration may help but isn’t the total solution.

phormium

I think I'd hire one for the first go anyway before you buy one. I have tried the manual versions on my lawn but not a hope I can push it down, it would take a serious bit of power to punch holes in my 'lawn' and yours sounds similar so not sure any affordable option would be strong enough, I think you'd need a commercial model.

I haven't gone with a hired one yet but hope to do so, I have tried killing the moss past couple of years and have one of the machines for scraping off that but it didn't really help so now it's taking up space in my shed and is pretty useless.

Lumen

I don't see how an aerator will help with compaction, unless it's a very thin layer you can punch through.

magicbastarder

what sort of garden is it? not a suburban new build i assume?
if it's deep heavy clay, it may be futile; as lumen mentions, creating a series of holes may not give the water anywhere to drain away to if the bottom of the hole is also heavy clay
if it is a thin pan, rotovating it might be the best option, but as you mention it's recently been resurfaced so i suspect that would not be ideal for you.

kylith

If you have clay the only thing that will work is digging in _lots_ of organic matter such as wood chips and compost. I’m dealing with sandy clay here and it’s not much fun.

irishproduce

Thanks for the replies.
Yeah it's not new. Garden is about 40 to 50 years old.
I have photos from a few years ago though and it was fine lush grass.
Something has changed. It's the winter flooding that is the worst. It's like a mud swamp in December.
I was thinking to start thumping those holes into it, then spread thin layers of sand and compost together.
Rinse and repeat every 2 weeks or so during summer months.

magicbastarder

we had one of the wettest winters in history, i think, so i wouldn't go by the one we just had if it was just in the last year.