21″ Rolling Lawn Aerator, Preasembled Spikes, Only Needs 3-5 Minutes to Assemble, 75″ Long Handle with Quick Clip Connections, Stable U-shape Construction – Blue.

I live in an area that gets a lot of rain and aerating my lawn every spring is a must! I have literally tried EVERYTHING on the market absent large farming equipment (I’m in a suburban area) to make this task easier. It seems almost everything is either effective or it is easy but none are both. And most of the effective solutions lose effectiveness over time as they get clogged up with soil plugs and thatch. Among the things I’ve tried are:* an electric dethatching/scraping machine – helped get rid of thatch but did not aerate well at all* shoes with spikes – fun at first, until you sprain an ankle* a step-on aerator with no springs (kind of like a walking cane with pokey things at the end) – extremely slow to use and constantly clogs* a step-on aerator with springs – this was the best solution until now in that it got the job done, but it still took a really long time of repetitive movements and it was hard to do it evenly over the whole lawn. It also has some issues with clogging but not as much as the cane or the shoes.None of the above compares to both the ease and effectiveness of this roller. First, it is so much more heavy duty than I was expecting looking at the product photos–I thought it was going to be a flimsy hollow aluminum mop handle screwed into a spikey drum. The metal parts of this are nothing like your average imported yard tool, they are similar in quality to a bicycle frame. The drum is very heavy. By design, the rolling motion prevents the clogging that is so annoying about other methods of aeration. The product comes with nice hardware and tools for assembly. The assembly is pretty straightforward although a bit more involved than what is advertised here.If you’ve ever docked a pizza or seen someone doing it at your local MOD, it’s like that but on a much larger scale–it’s actually pretty fun. It took me a few lawn lengths to get a handle on the right speed and amount of pressure to apply. Bear in mind, my ground is extremely soft right now–if you live in a more arid climate, you might want to do it the day after a big rainstorm or after a few days of heavy watering. I was hopeful I would be able to stand in front of it and walk backward as I used it so I wouldn’t be stepping over the part I just aerated, but this was too awkward for me. I tried to walk around with a light touch.All in all, I completed the same task that took me over an hour last year in 15 minutes and with a lot less anguish. In addition, it was fun enough that I’m going to go use it at my mom’s as well.