Transform Your Lawn: Unleash an Electric Rake and Scarifier

Moss, thatch and leaf litter can be a hazard for your lawn. With an electric rake and scarifier you can provide great lawn care and get your lawn lush, healthy and green.

Ever tried to hand rake your lawn? It takes forever and is back breaking work. Often you won’t put enough force through the rake to pull up moss or thatch. Too much force and you might break the tines on your rake!

An electric rake is a much easier solution. Most electric rakes simply have a collection of metal tines attached to a spinning cylinder. When powered, the cylinder spins at high speed and the tines flail around, pulling moss and weeds from the lawn whilst leaving the well established grass intact.

An electric scarifier uses spinning blades to dig into the lawn’s surface to pull out thatch, moss and leaf litter.

The blades are attached to a spinning cylinder and cut into the lawn when spun. They will help aerate the lawn and ensure it can breath.

What is the difference between a rake and a scarifier?

A rake causes less stress for your lawn. You’ll often be able to get a good amount of moss and thatch removed however you may leave some. You’ll likely find your lawn looking thinner, a little more brown but very much still intact. It’s natural to look less green when you remove the naturally green moss.

Scarifying is much more intense. As the blades cut into the ground, you’ll remove more thatch and moss. The lawn will be left looking very bare, but with with right aftercare will come back looking much better for it.

You can rake pretty much any time of year, however scarifying requires your grass to be actively growing. If you scarify, make sure to do this in April or May to ensure the grass can recover when it is growing at its fastest.

Using an electric rake is simple. First set the height as stated in the instructions. Start on higher settings working your way lower.

Move up and down the lawn in rows, walking the machine slowly across the lawn. Either use the collection box or use a lawn rake to collect up any removed thatch and moss.

Once you’ve completed one pass, perform the same action but this time at 90 degrees to your first pass.

After a few passes your lawn should look noticeably more brown and you’ll have likely filled more garden waste bags than you would have imagined!

To use an electric scarifier to rejuvenate your lawn, you first need to do a bit of prep.

Cut The Lawn Low

Start by cutting the lawn reasonably low. This should be around April or May and usually your 3rd or 4th cut of the year. This will help with the following steps.

Apply Moss Killer

Approximately 2 weeks before you plan to scarify your lawn apply moss killer. Make sure to follow the instructions, usually only applying a couple of days after you last cut the lawn. If you skip this step, you’ll end up spreading moss all round your lawn rather than removing it.

Cut The Lawn Very Low

Once the mosskiller has had some time to work, and a couple of days before scarifying your lawn, cut the grass as low as you can. You should be cutting at a height that is as low as you can cut whilst avoiding the blade digging into the ground. The height of the cut you achieve will vary depending on how uneven your lawn is.

Scarify Your Lawn

Start with the scarifier on a high setting and work across and lawn in lines. After each pass, make sure to collect up the debris removed.

Lower the height and work perpendicular to your first pass.

The lawn will look very bare and brown after scarifying.

Apply Topsoil & Overseed

Apply a thin layer of topsoil to the lawn. Next lightly apply grass seed over the topsoil. This process is called overseeding.

Make sure to regularly water your lawn over the next few weeks.

Don’t Worry About The Looks

When you first rake or scarify your lawn, you’ll be horrified at the state of it. This is perfectly normal. With minimal care and attention, your lawn will come back stronger and look greener. Just don’t do this the day before a garden party!

Mix Up the Angle

Make sure you mix up the angles. Raking or scarifying in one direction will only do so much. Make sure you at the very least go perpendicular to you original direction. Ideally do a final pass at diagonals.

Ignore the Collection Box

Most scarifiers or electric rakes will come with tiny collection boxes. My Makita DLM533 lawn mower comes with a huge 70L collection box. My electric rake and scarifier comes with a tiny 28L collection box.

If your lawn is anything like mine, you’ll pull up so much moss and thatch you’ll fill the box every 20 yards so you might be better off simply leaving the box off and collecting the debris by hand, or with the lawn mower later on.

Bring Your Garden Waste Bags

The amount of debris you pull out of the lawn will be significant. You’ll want to ensure you have plenty of garden waste bags ready to fill. This will create much more waste than simply mowing the lawn.

Even for a small lawn I recommend getting an electric version. You can buy hand scarifiers but honestly it will be a lot of effort and you probably won’t get results as good.

I opted for a ‘screwfix special’. For £70 I was able to buy a dual electric rake and scarifier. You can swap between the two by simply removing two bolts and swapping the cylinder under the machine.

This will be far from the best rake or scarifier, but it’s served me well so far. It’s got a reasonably narrow operating area, of only 32cm and it’s corded meaning you’ll likely need an extension lead. You should also grab a pair of ear defenders as it’s pretty loud – all scarifiers will be. I use some from 3M, available on amazon.

I bought the 1500W Raker and Scarifier from Screwfix. I paid £70. For something comparable you’ll likely pay £120-140. A cordless equivalent will cost around £180. For a better quality product, with a wider cutting width perhaps over £280.

I’ve got a large lawn and the small working width does limit progress. I tend to spend longer picking up the debris than I do using the scarifier. The collection box is woefully small but it’s perfectly operable without it attached.

The results were impressive. There was a huge amount of debris to collect, with the rake attachment or scarifier attachment. I like being able to swap between the two tools.

I use my scarifier once a year, and the rake attachment perhaps another time a year. For the other 363 days of a year my scarifier sits in the garage gathering dust. For £70 this was a solid investment that has helped keep my lawn in decent shape.

If you buy a cheap electric rake and scarifier like I did I highly recommend it. It does a great job of making the lawn look lusher, and getting rid of moss.

The price for a cheap scarifier and rake is around the cost of a large bag of weed, feed and moss killer and a bag of lawn seed. If you care about your lawn, for that price it will likely save you money over the long run.

It’s a handy tool to have in the garage. I can swap between scarifying and raking by just removing a couple of bolts. For the price, I really don’t mind throwing an extension lead out of the window a couple of times a year!

I’d genuinely recommend buying one if you want to improve your lawn. Alternatively, for a tool you’ll use once or twice a year maybe borrow one from a friend or neighbour.