Hello All,

We have moved into a new house with very hard soil. I am looking for
an aerator that will take 2" - 3" plugs from hard packed soil.

I tried renting the standard rolling, plugging aerator but it
basically rolled over the top of the ground. In the odd spot of the
yard where is would actually take out plugs, it removed only very
shallow plugs (~0.5" long). I used to work at a lawn care company,
and we used big industrial aerators that would easily remove plugs
from clay, tree roots, and even the odd slab on concrete if you were
not careful. It was a gas driven, walk behind unit, but instead of
the tines rolling along the pluggers were on a large cam shaft so they
went straight into the ground and then straight out again.

It bounced around a lot (as you can imagine) but really did the job on
hard packed soil. Within a couple of aerations we could return lush
lawn where only weeds would grow before.

Does anyone know where I could rent such a machine in Austin? Of a
lawn care company that uses this type instead of the rolling tine
type?

All comments welcome.

Thanks
John