VERTIKUTIEREN oder LÜFTEN - der RASENFREAK testet seine SWARDMAN Kassetten

Hello dear lawn freaks, welcome to a new video by Lawnfreak Andreas Krauss. Today it’s about these two boxes here. Fortunately, I got two different tapes from Swardman, for airing the lawn. A Verticutter and a Scarifier. Today we want to clarify the question: which is better, verticutting or scarifying? Stay tuned! Yes freaks, verticutting or scarifying? Both measures involve airing the turf. We want sun and rain, there are some dark clouds in the sky again, I still don’t know how it will be today. We want light, rain so light, water and air, bring into the soil.

01:08 - And the grass, the turf, prevents the inclusion of these three important elements for the lawn. If the thatch becomes too dense. If too much dead grass lies on the turf. When the turf is getting thicker. If the grass becomes too dense overall. It’s windy again, incredible. If the turf simply becomes too dense and too narrow, then you should scarify or verticutting, to get back these important elements… I almost said wind now, sun, water and air, but air is also there. Can you stop being so windy? Sun, water, air… Yes into the soil with sun, water, air and to do that we have to open the lawn a little now and then, thin out a bit and get the dead manure out of the turf.

02:15 - Which is really great with the Swardman, of course, once you have the spindle to cut, to mow, the grass. And you have different cassettes that you can actually exchange relatively easily, you see everything right away to perform various other activities on his lawn. I have now received this Verticutter and the Scarifier. There is another brush for the Swardman, but I don’t have it now. Yes, it would be an interesting thing, but we don’t. One thing I think is very good, if you combine scarifying or verticutting with fertilizing. That you scarify or verticut practically directly before fertilizing. Of course we also want to have the fertilizer in the soil and not lying on the turf and on the dead thatch. But the fertilizer should go into the soil. The lawn seeds should go into the ground. They shouldn’t be on top either. They should connect to the topsoil, so that they germinate and rise quickly.

03:21 - In my view, both measures are very useful to be carried out directly before fertilizing or reseeding. What do you have to do now to exchange the cassettes? It’s actually relatively easy. You loosen this belt from the pretensioner here and just pull the strap down. Let him hang here so that he doesn’t bother. Now you have these two screws. Unscrew one screw on one side, Don’t forget the washer. Now there is a cool trick. The Swardman trick. You just hang the screw on the magnet. Other side, another magnet.

04:24 - And now you can easily remove the Scarifier… oh yes… I keep forgetting that. I keep forgetting! To pull out the cassettes, you have to put the Swardman, the height setting, all the way up, Man! So you have to really put it up, up here, otherwise the cassette will not slide past the front bar. All the way up… Set it all the way up and then you can easily remove the Scarifier, the spindle unit 😉. Cool thing! Here you can see the connection of the three settings for the lower knife very nicely. Now I can quickly show the lower knife again.

05:27 - Nice the lower knife, there’s still paper in here. Yes, I had just tested the cut again. Here is this claw, this opening, and it is put on this pipe behind it. And so that you can also hit the pipe at the back, there are these two sheets. The cassette slides up and slips right in here. This is now the Scarifier and the Scarifier now has these wire tines here, these springy little wires. Like little claws. These wires that gently pluck the thatch out of the lawn. Now we’re going to do this two lanes and then I’m going to rebuild it for you. Then I rebuild on the Verticutter and then let’s take a look at the difference. Now it’s just threaded in here nice here… that’s important… there! The shaft has to go in this slot. And you’re done! The spindle slips onto this pipe as if by itself.

06:49 - Then of course I can screw the old screws straight onto the spindle. Is there a washer now, no of course I forgot the washer. Naturally! Washer should be. Do not pull too tight, tighten hand-tight. Already finished? No, not finished yet. Don’t forget the strap. To thread the strap back up. Seen? Again? Again the strap, you put it away here. It is now threaded back up, zack, and this lever then tensions the belt.

07:36 - fine Now the question: How do I set this Scarifier? A good start is we make the Scarifier so deep that it just stands on the floor. Our first approach. Just on the floor… just now… yes, well. Just test it. Never forget this screw! And put the lid back on. From the setting, the Scarifier is now at 10 mm. What I forgot: Swardman now recommends driving at full throttle, driving at full throttle, and let the drive grind a bit. So drive slowly forward, but let the Scarifier turn quickly. Let’s see how I can do it. You can already see what happened.

09:30 - I look into the grass catcher again but I think you could go a little deeper Now I went back to 5 mm. You can already see how gentle it is. So how careful these wire tines get the dead grass out of the lawn. There is of course green grass, not just brown grass. But I really do, I have practically no thath in my lawn. That’s why it’s all about brushing the flat-lying blades a bit high. And don’t get all the thath out now, that is just not there. So I think 5 mm is good. If you look closely… You should really set it so that the lawn is really torn out and is not milled into the earth. It’s zero, there’s zero lawn thath. Madness In no case deeper, so five is optimal here. The dosage here with the drive works great. You have to play a little bit that he is already moving forward but not fast, not full throttle.

11:26 - You have to let it sand a bit, the V-belt, works perfectly. This scarifying is a really incredibly gentle method. That’s why you can do that very often. You can actually I don’t want to say every week, but once a month, no problem at all. You can see the grass is practically undamaged. Now let’s take a look at the Verticutter and look directly at the difference. I’m really excited. Zack out again, fantastic. It’s already dirty. You can see here, that is also very nice…

12:12 - Here you can see how the dirt, the sandy lawn thatch, sticks to the back of this baffle. Incidentally, this is the Verticutter that you get for my voucher code. Rasenfreak2020, a Verticutter for free until the end of May. I hope the video comes out beforehand. Zack, rebuild Ha ha ha ha, the screws again… Threading carefully… So the Verticutter is really a nasty part. It really has, like a plow, tines that really bite into the soil towards the front. Of course also fixed knives that bite into the soil and then pull out the thatch. One thing that always stands out when scarifying and verticutting, the machine gets totally dirty because not only the grass is cut and thrown up. But also a lot of sand and pebbles. And pebbles are death for cylinder mower. You really have to see how to get the pebbles out. Collect or mow deep with a sickle mower. The one that sucks best. Because every pebble is a potential capital damage for the spindle. That is the disadvantage.

13:51 - Here you can see the scale from 0 to 50 max, that’s for cutting. And then there is another - 14. For the Verticutter you can even go below zero, that means lowering the mower than zero. So that you can mill deep into the soil with the Verticutter. I don’t think anything of it at all, so don’t mill into the soil. But only until the end of the blades. So do not slit into the ground, then the roots will break immediatelysoil You want to get the thatch out and not get the earth or the root out of the soil.

So not too deep! 14:31 - So freaks, we do it exactly the same way. We’ll go down to 10 for now. Directly comparable to 10. The exact same thing. It wasn’t deep enough. Verticutting, scarifying, clear difference. Here you can do it quite well see. Can we do this? Here you can see very nicely that it has already cut into the soil. I say 5 mm, that’s the absolute limit. I would never go any lower. Here too… you can already see it here… you can see very nicely… Here this slot here… because the slot… that is almost too deep. Verticutting is much more aggressive than scarifying. Of course, that depends a lot on what kind of thatch you have.

17:31 - If you really have a heavily thatched floor, the Verticutter is just right. Brilliant, once in one direction, then verticut again 90º, so properly verticut crosswise. Perfect! Scarifying, possible more often, much gentler. With me here completely sufficient. Yes freaks, cool number. Now we are showing verticut again without a grass catcher, we haven’t filmed that yet. well What you see here, you see the earth everywhere between. Earth is thrown up here everywhere.

18:40 - There, you can also see very nice, small earthy crumbs. Even a little bit of roots is attached to the earth. Here, too, travels a bit with the first roots. And here it’s really pure grass, pure grass, or dead grass. There is not a crumb of earth in it. You can not see clearly here but you can already see these longitudinal grooves. But not bad either. You can see more of this torn out grass here. On the other hand, that’s not that strong. But here you also see a certain structure. That’s incredible. That’s awesome, here he tears the stalks out more clearly. Here I would definitely mow with a sickle mower that also sucks nicely.

21:15 - Lower the sickle mower, and then mow over with the sickle mower. And since the Scarifier you can continue mowing as normal. Above all because here lies now torn out earth, yes matted earth globes. The earth is everywhere. And of course it’s like sandpaper for the cylinder mower. Yes dear lawn freaks, little tutorial, comparing verticutting with scarifying. What is better verticutting or scarifying? You can scarify much more often than verticut. Verticut only if you really have a very thatch soil. My opinion! Scarifying once a month, no problem at all. A wonderfully gentle measure to get some air, light and water back into the turf, into the soil. Perfect Verticutting is more aggressive but also more effective if you want to achieve something.

22:20 - Therefore always dependent on what you have. Exactly! Thank you for watching. I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Your Lawnfreak bye .