Rotivators....?

[spudley]

From thread on digging my first garden and there always being loads of digging, would a rotivator be worth the purchase?

we have quite a large area that we use for planting an want to expand. We both work and have to commute quite a distance so are very time poor, and the digging although is very satisfying when finished takes up a large proportion of very valuable time.

would anyone reccomend using one? Is it too much of a cheat and what sort of a job do they do ?
(I also see from another thread that de turfers are not frowned upon- it seemed to do a good job i will definately consider using one of those)

[chickenchaser]

Hi Spudley,
We hired a rotovator at our last house to do a new lawn. They definitely take out the backache but there is still weed picking and lots of raking.
Also, they are not like lawnmowers doing all the work as they can be quite heavy to handle and will tire you out.
I would still definitely recommend one if you have a big patch. There is nothing as hard work as digging to my mind.

Happy gardening

[Effie]

We rotavatored the ground for the first lawn I laid (just remembered, that was with a different 'we' ) It was REALLY hard work and didn't do as much as I had hoped. We (current 'we' ) didn't use one for this garden. Instead, we paid the kids on the street 1p per stone, and got a work party of relatives in. They brought a fork, we supplied the liquid refreshments. Great party atmosphere and much more enjoyable, got it cleared in no time

We did the same to prepared the chook house. Hubby got the feeders for his birthday (lucky him ) and visitors brought bits of wood, wire, staples etc. Total cost - big vat of chilli which we were going to feed to everyone when they visited that day anyway.

[spudley]

thanks fot that, i thought that they would be heavy. Did you use petrol or electric?

We use any visitor that comes, every one knows that there is no such thing as a free meal at our house!

There is always a ditch to dig, and if not digging a wheel barrow of collected stones is not too much to ask....

[Mo]

A rotavator is alright if you've got an empty patch, I find theres always a half row of something or other to get in the way.
We bought one 35 yrs ago when we moved here to break up the 'lawn big enough for a tennis court' to plant soft fruit. Then we wished we'd just taken out strips and left grass between the rows as we had trouble keeping the weeds down (and didn't want to disturb the roots of the bushes.
I think we sold it in the end.

[taff]

I read somewhere that if you have a lot of weedy ground, they're a bit of a pain, because they chop all the roots up, so you end up with hundreds more weeds than you would have originally.
Having said that though, I would use one if the ground were good enough to plant in.
(The turf stripper was as someone else described it, like driving a recalcitrant rhino, so beware. And definitely wear ear plugs or something like that - I also found I had to keep one foot on the nearest bit to propel it forward through a lot of it. I was on my own doing it, and while it's reccomended that you clear the turf as you go, I found it easier to leave it there, because then I could just drive it back through the tire marks that were already there and not miss any of the grass, like I did when I started clearing it at first)
If you do use one, can you do a post to say what it was like using it?

[Dave]

my "other job" is working in a tool hire shop

turf cutters
turf cutters "should "only be use on turfed lawns
if it is a seeded lawn the cutting blade gets blunted very quickly
turf is a sort of carpet of grass
its only roots that then grow down
when a turf cutter cuts it is surposed to cut at the bottom of the
"carpet" ie just the roots/bottom of the grass plant

if you cut seeded lawns the the cutter will be cutting 2" into the earth and with all the coarse mud and stones it blunts the blade

if you come into the shop and ask for a turf cutter we will not hire you one for cutting seeded lawn

rotavators
unless you are going to use it every now and then
hire one
if they are left for more than a couple of months
the petrol goes off
the tynes can go rusty
carb rubbers can harden up(in extreem cases)
i am always getting customers comming into the shop saying
my rotavator /lawnmower wont start
its normaly bad petrol
and somtimes a corroded spark plug
i change the petrol and strip/clean the carb put a new plug in and away they go
till next year
we all have an old can of petrol in the shed
well people throw it away its probably last years and it bad

hope this is some use to you

Dave

[spudley]

from the above post from Dave it will be a rental then.

I think that I will let the ground dry out a bit first though.

[Dave]

we recomend to our customers that
if the ground is dry water it first to soften it up a bit
it helps the ratavator to cut into the ground
if the ground is dry and hard you might get charged for new blades

[taff]

Dave, what kind of lawn is it that's been left for years, and you don't know if it was seeded or turfed?
I'm not being sarcastic, I genuinely haven't got a clue what type it is, and now I'm wondering whether I should have used the turf cutter.
And is there a difference between a turf cutter and a turf stripper?
Sorry for hijacking the thread too.

[stiggy]

I've got a Stihl combi engine - KM90R which I have a few attachments for, and one is a rotavator.

As it relies on pressure to get iot deep, it's not an easy job, but I've found even with that I've managed to get a good result on our plot.

The wheeled type would be a lot easier to use I imagine.

[Dave]

taff
if you dont know
then i would take as being seeded

turf cutter and a turf stripper(the same thing)

stiggy
we use stihl brush cuters/chainsaws and disc cutters
they are the best 2 strokers
most of our 4 srtokers are Honders