I’LL EVEN TRAVEL THROUGH A BLACK HOLE TO FIND ONE!

To avoid having to hear me moan bitterly, my wife wants to know if there is anywhere in the whole universe a manual Hollow Tine Lawn Aerator that actually works, without one having to spend countless hours — as some online reviewers state while referring to a very expensive item — “manually ejecting the cores oneself with some kind of ram rod”?

Is there not, somewhere in the galaxy, a merciful manufacturer.

 

I thought the principle was that the next enfoncement pushes out the previous plugs? Ergo; once you've started hollow-tining, you can't stop There must be thousands of cases of supposedly 'missing' people who were last seen brandishing a lawn aerator and muttering about just doing a half-hour before lunch!

 

I bought one of these last year and yes it does work, as you would expect at the price.

Hollow tine fork aerator - Garden Imports UK Ltd.

I did find it makes all the difference if the lawn has had some water before use.

 

Thank you for your interesting but also disheartening reply because the item you suggest is the very one whose review I had quoted in part; here it is in full:
"In theory the open faced tines allow the cores to be automatically ejected - they don't.
My lawn was well watered before using, the heavily compacted soil 90% of the time became jammed in the tines meaning you either carry on making it pointless having hollow tines or you have to manually eject the cores yourself with some kind of ram rod.
Certainly you can do that but it more than trebles the time and certainly isn't as advertised.
Of course if you don't have heavily compacted soil then you may not face this problem, but then if you don't have heavily compacted soil you don't need this device.
The price point on these is for a premium product and it doesn't operate that way; my advice?
...... buy a much cheaper one and manually eject the cores yourself becasue that is what you'll have to do with this one anyway."
Any further comment about this review, as well as experiences you have had with this product, would be appreciated, in the hope of elucidating any discrepancies between respective perceptions.

Thank goodness you have alerted us to this; never too many a lerts; “one is never paranoid enough!”, autrement dit: “On ne sait jamais d’où ça peut venir!” As for "the next enfoncement pushes out the previous plugs", apparently, not. What to believe? Where to turn, other than to one's wife? Plus ça change.

 

My guess would be, it's all about how moist the soil is, because I did have two different experiences myself.

I had a 25m2 area and I had decided to do half an hour on it and then again the next day. First day was fine (after rain) but second day very noticeably harder going, so the obvious plan was to water a small area first, or wait for rain. I chose to apply the water myself and the job went fine.

 

I do hope that doesn't mean that you're going to ask her to go over the lawn with an apple corer Although we've only known you for a short time here on GC, we'll be sure to send flowers

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swardman-P...phy=1006907&hvtargid=pla-1149492183832&psc=1#

 

On the rare occasions when I feel it necessary to aerate my lawn I usually just stick the fork in and wiggle it to loosen it a bit. I then top dress with sand. Seems to work a treat.

Last time I did it I didn't use the fork. This is highly unconventional but it was surprisingly good fun and did the job. I had my drill out for another job I'd just finished. So I took a 32 mm flat blade wood bit, and just went crazy drilling holes in the lawn. I had the whole lot done in minutes. Like I said, very unconventional, and if my neighbours saw me they'd have probably assumed I'd flipped, but it seemed to work.

 

How imaginative of you! Thank you for planting the thought; it will blossom and flower.

As for my wife, wait till you see her glowing with satisfaction and delight on her pleasure platform; her expression will tell you all you need to know about the kind of life she leads!

 

Thank you @noisette47 , this went right on top of my Black Christmas Present list. He'll love it.

 

This is the one I used. Worked great. I then swept the cores into the adjoining beds.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NFNKAL8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1