If you’re serious about lawn care, a lawn spreader is a great investment. These tools make the process of spreading grass seed, fertilizer or even ice melt a breeze. Fortunately, they’re not tremendously expensive either. We ranked and reviewed several products to find the best lawn spreader available. Scott and I ultimately realized that there are several competent variations. In this article we’ll explore what to look for in a lawn spreader, how much you should pay for a good one and which ones gave us the highest performance.
Best Lawn Spreader: Scotts Elite Lawn Spreader
- Dual rotor technology provides unbeatable accuracy and a 6ft spread pattern for time savings. This is our most accurate spreader ever
- Holds up to 20,000 sq. ft. of Scotts lawn product, including grass seed, fertilizer, salt and ice melt
- Never-flat tires to conquer any terrain
What To Look For In A Lawn Spreader
Spread Pattern Coverage: One of the most important attributes of a lawn spreader is the spread pattern it will dispense your lawn product. A lawn spreader with a 3ft spread pattern will require you to spend twice as much time as one like the Scotts Elite Spreader with 6 feet. Unless your backyard is extremely narrow, always seek a lawn spreader with a large spread pattern.
Load Capacity: Similarly to comparing spread patterns, bigger is better with load capacity. Ideally, you should be able to fit your entire backyard’s worth of lawn product in one or two loads maximum. If you have a small backyard, this may be less important than things such as weight and accessories.
Weight: There is a degree of manual labor to lawn spreaders. That degree can be intensified if you have a heavy lawn spreader. There’s nothing worse than pushing an already-heavy device around a lawn full of lawn product. You want a lighter lawn spreader that is still made of high quality. If you have a bulky lawn spreader it also increases the chance of tipping it over and spilling all of your precious lawn care product in one spot. We had this happen on a few models we tested and it was not easy to clean up.
Accessories: Depending on your backyard size and how often you plan to put your lawn spreader to use, it can be nice to have some comfort features. For example, the Scotts Elite Spreader has a smartphone holder. This makes the monotony of pushing your lawn spreader around much less annoying. While testing the Scotts lawn spreader I found myself watching YouTube comedy clips. Before I realized it, I had spread about half a large backyard’s worth of product.
How Much Does A Lawn Spreader Cost?
Lawn spreaders are probably a little more expensive than you’d imagine. After all, they are just a bucket with wheels and a spreading mechanism. Although, a quality lawn spreader will cost between $100 – $200. There are plenty of models that introduce slightly more automatic features for upwards of $250. However, in our opinion, those are not worth the investment. Until the days when robot lawn mower companies make robotic lawn spreaders, its best to focus on the basics.
Scott and I were surprised to find that many brick and mortar stores near our homes were charging much higher prices for lawn spreaders. Equivalent models were in the $200 – $300 range. Therefore, we recommend purchasing one of the models we recommend in this guide online. This will likely save you about $100 depending on where you reside.
How Does A Lawn Spreader Work?
If you’ve never used a lawn spreader before, let us begin by saying it will dramatically improve your backyard efforts. A lawn spreader works by being pushed around your backyard as it dispenses lawn products. Unlike a lawn mower where you need to cover every inch of your backyard, a lawn spreader will cover the surrounding area of its pattern. Using a lawn spreader is undoubtedly the most efficient way to extend lawn products across your backyard.
You can use a lawn spreader for multiple purposes. In fact, it’s one of the only backyard tools we’ve found that is useful across all four seasons. Lawn spreaders can help disperse lawn care products such as grass seed and fertilizer. However, you can also use it to spread ice melt and snow salt. We recommend spraying down the bucket of your lawn spreader in between seasons.
Best Lawn Spreader Reviews
Best Lawn Spreader Summary
We hope you have enjoyed our lawn spreader reviews. Any of the 5 lawn spreaders we included will be an immense help for your backyard efforts. If you live in a climate with 4 seasons, you’ll be able to enjoy the usefulness of these contraptions in the winter as well. In our opinion, this the most underrated use of a lawn spreader. Never pay more than $200 for a lawn spreader. You can find a good quality lawn spreader around $150 during most points of the year.
