How to Use a Lawn Roller – Beginner’s Guide

How to Use a Lawn Roller - Beginner’s Guide

Sharing is caring!

A lawn roller is a very useful gardening tool for gardeners as well as homeowners. It helps the user to create flat and smooth lawns in the first place. Apart from that, this tool helps to establish and maintain grass seed, enables fresh sod to press down and more. If you want to get a good flat lawn, then lawn roller is the best available equipment. It is easy to handle and again, doesn’t require hard labor as well.

Different types of lawn rollers are now available in the market. However, a basic manual lawn roller comes with a heavy rolling drum along with handles. The handle helps the user maneuver this device around the lawn. For first time user, how to use this lawn roller is a big concern. And this is why I explained this topic here for beginners with simple words.

When to Use a Lawn Roller?

Contents

Before going to the prime instructions, it is necessary for you to know when you need a roller to use. You can’t just buy one according to your necessity and put it on your lawn. As a matter of fact, you should use it before and after seeding as well. Ensure the removal of twigs, weeds, rocks as well as other debris from the lawn before you take the roller into operation. You will even need the roller for laid fresh sod in your lawn. This will enable you to terminate air pockets and to mesh the plant root with the lawn soil.

How to Use a Lawn Roller in Your Lawn?

Those who already used a lawn roller know that it is very easy to operate. For beginners, it may seem uncomfortable at first to work with. For them, I wrote on how to use a lawn roller here from my personal experience. I can ensure you that with this guideline, you will start to enjoy rolling around for sure. So, let’s begin with the instructions.

  • Choosing a Suitable Lawn Roller

2 major types of rollers are available in the market. The first one is the manual one whereas the other one is connected or attached roller with a tractor. The manual one needs human force to work while the attached one requires mechanical force to function. For small lawn along with the low budget, manual one is perfect to work with. Again, it is also helpful for those who don’t have any tractor as well as don’t have a dire necessity of a roller all the time.

On the other hand, mechanical roller works better for large lawn as well as for gardener with a higher budget. Although this one is more expensive than the manual one, it provides less labor for working. A manual lawn roller works great as a mean of good physical exercise for the user. That is why most gardeners prefer to do rolling with the manual one for a small lawn. Based on your demand, you need to buy any of these 2. But I would like to suggest you go for the manual one if the lawn is not too big.

  • Assembling the Device with Care

Most lawn rollers arrive at the customer in separated parts. You need not worry about how to assemble the parts and how to use this lawn roller as well. All you need is to put together those parts with care. In general, the manufacturing company provides an instruction manual with a lawn roller. You can assemble the entire machine without any major trouble by going through that manual. As a matter of fact, it is a very easy task to assemble. Whether you are a beginner or experienced one, I believe you can do it for sure.

  • Filling the Drum with Water or Sand

Many lawn rollers come with an advantage of having adjustable weight. In that case, you need to fill up the rolling drum from the device with water or sand. Whether it is sand or water is entirely up to you. You need to fill up the drum around 1/4th of its volume to create weight. Before getting started, it will be great if you check the roller weight by rolling over an empty soil patch. If your usual footstep creates a footprint over a ¼ inch deep, then you will have to get additional weight. Needless to say, you better be careful while adjusting the roller weight to make it heavy enough forming a flat ground. Otherwise, it will crush the roots of the seedlings instead.

  • Start Working with the Roller on Your Lawn

The most suitable time to start rolling your lawn is after a heavy rain, if possible. Because heavy rain makes the soil soft with which you can work with ease. Again, don’t start working just after raining. A muddy lawn will rather make it impossible to roll around with perfection. Hence, allow the soil to get dry for a while. However, you may take the help of sprinkler system instead of heavy rain as well. Open up the sprinkler to get water to the soil. Similar to the above process, you will have to wait for some time as well so the ground dries up a bit.

Now, start pushing the roller from one end of the lawn from the other. In the case of machine rollers, drive the tractor in a similar way as that of a lawn mower from one end to another. Try to drive the tractor at a slow speed. As a result, the roller will get the chance to pressurize the ground long enough. This will encourage the soil to flatten without any difficulty. For both manual and machine lawn roller, make several rolling passes on irregular as well as bumpy surfaces. Continue doing this unless the surfaces become smooth and flat.

While rolling on a new lawn, fill out all holes and cracks with dirt. Then use the roller to give pressure on the soil into those holes and cracks as well firmly. For appropriate sodding, plant fresh sods on the lawn ground at first. After that, start running over the planted sods using the lawn roller. This will press the grass roots into the soil at a uniform rate. In addition, if the growth of lawn grasses makes any uneven or irregular surface on your lawn, you will have to go for rolling one more time.

Final Words

For any sort of machines, it is true that you will have to face some difficulties as a beginner. Although a lawn roller is very easy to operate, you may feel some problems at the very first time. However, I simply tried to provide all the basic information on how to use a lawn roller on this article. With the guideline above, I think that you will not face any trouble. Along with this instruction, you can easily start working on a flat and even lawn.

Search Also:

Sharing is caring!

Recent Posts