The grass box on the Bosch ALR 900 does seem to be a little flimsy which is surprising for Bosch, having said that it does not seem to affect the performance in any way. I believe the collection box feels a little flimsy as it comes in two parts. Bosch have done this to reduce the storage space required for the collection box as it can be split into two sides when not in use. Lawn rakers have a plastic cylinder that is covered in sprung metal tines, which can pull out moss and thatch from your lawn in a combing action. Lawn scarifiers have the same plastic cylinder, but in their case it is covered with knife blades, which are capable of cutting into the lawn to remove thatch and moss. You can also use your scarifier on its lowest setting, to cut into the soil and improve aeration. Q: How to change lawn raker tines? Soon enough, the thatch will obstruct the intake of air and water to the roots which will in turn will inhibit the growth of new healthy grass shoots. Before you know it, your once well manicured lawn will be nothing but a patchy shadow of itself.

A lot has changed since I first reviewed electric scarifiers a few years ago. Since testing the Cobra S3840V Cordless Battery Scarifier & Aerator I am convinced cordless models will play a part. It’s not without it’s faults but still, if you need cordless, and you don’t want petrol – it is well worth a look! Here’s me testing that: In my mission to find the best lawn scarifiers to remove moss and thatch, I tested some of the best models on their assembly ease, design, performance, ease of use, noise, safety, and value for money. Here are the tests I conducted: The handles once assembled can seem a little flimsy and insecure. Bosch have gone someway to resolving this by providing longer bolts to connect the handles. For sensible money you can buy this 2-in-1 scarifier and aerator from VonHaus. It really only has two competitors in my mind other than the Makita UV3600 Lawn Scarifier which isn’t even fair to review in the same category – let’s just call the Makita a Tiller :D. Firstly the better but way more expensive Bosch AVR 1100 Verti Cutter Lawn Raker and the BMC that looks to be built on the same tech with the same depth of lawn rake (15mm to -7mm). As a lawn aerator I Fancied the Einhell, but as a scarifier of lighter material, on money, this wins hands down at just over half the price! I think for thatch this is a real winner: Both rakes really are comparable when it comes to collection efficiency. Both collect the raked debris very well and its hard to see if one is better than the other. Also, they both compact the debris very well and you’ll be surprised just how much can be squashed into the collection box before the need to empty.If there’s a group of gardening tools that have people confused, it’s these three right here. But let’s get a few facts straight before we begin – There’s no difference between today’s range of scarifiers and lawn rakers. It’s just that when people refer to rakes, they mean those simple, long, light leaf rakes operated manually.

My opinion of this AL-KO lawn rake and scarifier kept improving after I started scarifying my mossy lawn. It didn’t take long for the machine to pull all of the moss and thatch out, and its large 1500W engine prevented it from overheating when it was used for longer stretches. Being a relatively quiet machine makes this scarifier suitable for urban settings – you won’t have to worry about your neighbours complaining about the noise it’s making, and ear defenders are definitely not needed. I also appreciated the machine’s safety features, from its bright orange lead that remains visible even in dark grass to the button that needs to be pressed before the machine can be turned on. Energy Construct Creation: Riker could generate energy blades that turned his small dagger into a massive sword. [1] Best overall electric scarifier and lawn rake: VonHaus 2 in 1 Lawn Raker / Scarifier– Beats the Bosch on value/performance [personally tested and proven]

Incidentally, the best for weeds and roots are the Makita and the Bosch. So following on from that you probably want to understand how deep it can rake and scarify so you can workout what tool you’ll need for your garden specifically: How deep can it scarify? Similar to a lawn mower’s cutting height, lawn scarification machines will come with different working depth settings.

Let’s start with assembly – something that I never really enjoy doing. This Hyundai needed a little more work than the other models I tested. Assembly took about 30 minutes in total. This isn’t a huge amount of time, but keep in mind that I have a fair bit of experience assembling scarifiers. For someone who has never done this before, it’ll likely take much longer, especially considering that the instruction manual was very little help. But what bugged me was the collector. Perhaps I was having a dozy day but the frame (which way round it should go) took me a good few minutes to decipher. The user manual might want to work on that. With this lawn rake you’re getting features normally found in high priced rakes, this is not the cheapest but is a very reasonable priced for what you are getting. To give you some guidance on which type of customer would suit this model best, below I’ve got a list of the categories they would fall under: The machine is also so easy to use, it’s lightweight at just under 10 kg making it simple to manage.

Petrol

However, where this machine falls short is with its aerating function. Unlike the other aerators I’ve used, this one doesn’t seem to actually aerate. Instead, the aerator roller does pretty much the same thing as the scarifier, except it’s much more severe. Remember all of that healthy grass I just mentioned that the scarifier left intact? Well, the aerator pretty much destroyed it all.