Lawn Care Equipments – How to Choose a Spreader

If you will be laying down weed killer, fertilizer or other lawn care products, you should look into buying spreaders. They will help you maintain your lawn and garden. There are two different types of spreaders: broadcast and drop spreaders. You will most likely want to have at least one of these for your lawn.

The broadcast spreader also comes within two varieties, including the hand-held version and the push-cart type.

One of the hand-held styles is small and has a large tub-like container that holds a few cups of grass feed or fertilizer beads. Make sure you wear gloves when dealing with the chemicals to be safe. Fill the container and then turn the crank to get the material to fall out of the holes out of the tub. If you want to seed lawn patches or specific plants, this is a great tool choice.

The larger push-cart has a bigger tub that will work in a similar fashion. The cart will sit on an axle and wheels with handlebars. In order to get the material to fall out, you squeeze the lever on the handle, releasing the material. The wheels will turn a rotor blade that will fling the seed, fertilizer or weed killer to a wide, broad arc area.

With the larger push-cart, you can cover a large area in a small amount of time. If you want to put both weed killer and fertilizer together and do both in a short amount of time, this style is ideal. The broadcast style will make the material shoot a large distance, however, and if you are working with a rectangular area, the circular path will not be conducive. In addition, if you have a smaller area, you will have problems keeping the material within the area and not ending up on the sidewalk or driveway.

If you get a drop spreader, you can have a similar tub and handle style, but the base of the tub will look very different. There will be a dial on the handle to help you select the size of the opening of the holes at the bottom of the tub, so you can control the amount of material that is going to be let out. Then you just proceed back and forth over the area that you want to cover.

A drop spreader is cheap and can last for years if you take care of it. You will need to wash the tub basin after each use and remove the chemicals’ residue. You can spread seeds with them, but more often, you will use them for dry weed killer, powder or lawn care mixtures that your lawn needs.

Either tub or a push-cart spreaders can typically hold a cubic foot of material, which is typically plenty unless you have an enormous yard. A drop spreader will be able to put material in a section of about 20 feet by 60 feet. You can easily take care of the spreader as well to keep it around for years.

         

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