Pros: Light, solid construction, easy to use, does a fine job with grass seed.
Cons: Overlap and lack of distribution control with fertilizers and weeders, clogs with de-icers.
The Bottom Line: I recommend this solely as a grass seed broadcaster. I found it lacking as a fertilizer/weeder spreader, and useless as a de-icer distributer.
Trawma's Full Review: Scotts Lawns Easy Hand Held Spreader
We’re not much of a chemical fertilizer family. We tend to mulch our cuttings back into the grass, fine mulch and spread our fallen leaves in the autumn, and make sure to water deeply a few times a week. However, a 7+ year run of dry weather and watering restrictions (coupled with some amazing stretches of high heat) had left our grass looking rather sad. We tried a year of the usual, but a few stretches just weren’t recovering the way we’d hoped. Finally, last year (after a much-needed wet winter and spring), we broke down and went the way of the “weed and feed” type product. As you know, when the grass struggles, the weeds thrive.
We picked up the Scotts Easy Hand Held Spreader (heretofore known as “Scotts Spreader”) and a bag of fertilizer/weed killer with some trepidation. As I said, we’re not very “chemical-y,' and we always put a lot of consideration into what products we use. It’s a holdover from my “granola” days, I guess. If there’s a way to do with without chemicals, I’ll likely do it. However, with a shot back and a wobbly hip, I’m not going to be on my knees uprooting dandelions for hours a day. Nope, nope.
The Scotts Spreader was blessedly cheap. Under ten bucks, seemed solid as could be (for hard plastic--don't go banging this thing off walls or running over it with your car), and a no-brainer on the operating front—just pop in the pellets up top in the open receptacle (doesn't wind up too heavy), set the output selector to the desired level, then pull the trigger under the handle while turning the side crank. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. I was reminded of a jack-in-the-box with a trigger. Of course, that is me.
Our experience with the Scotts Spreader when it came to broadcasting fertilizer? Abysmal. There was no way to prevent overlapping, no way to keep from winding up with an uneven spread, which made for an uneven color to the grass a few weeks down the road. It was obvious which spots had gotten too much. In addition, while spreading, there was no way to prevent broadcast onto the driveway, patio, walks, etc. It was also almost impossible to keep out of my flowerbeds, where I most certainly do NOT want a weeding product broadcast. In all, I was completely unimpressed, and we wound up back at the store buying a walk-behind spreader, which allowed for far greater control of where and how much of the product was spread.
We kept the Scotts Spreader, though. Figured we’d find some use for it . . . and so we did. Since we’re moving, we wanted to leave the family with a yard looking as good as possible. Part of that is reseeding that third of the back yard that’s been nothing but dirt and cedar chips for years because of the dogs. We raked, roughed up, then poured the grass seed into the spreader and gave it a whirl. Did it broadcast the seeds? Absolutely, and quite effortlessly, too! Right now we have a very nice bit of new grass coming up. Too bad about the 100+ degree temps. Makes it hard to keep the grass watered and happy, though we’ve still got green thus far. While I wouldn’t recommend this spreader for reseeding small spots (hand scattering works a lot better for that, and with less waste of seed), for bigger stretches, the Scotts Spreader works very nicely.
Another use we’ve tried? Ice melt. And it was another abysmal failure. When set to a light output, the ice melt was spread too thinly, failing to do the job of de-icing the walks and drive. When set to heavier output, it clogged up, bogged down. We wound up just using it as a receptacle rather than a spreader—you know, fill the spreader, then carry it along while hand broadcasting.
Would I recommend this Scotts Spreader to others? Sure, as a seed broadcaster. But it utterly failed to meet my needs in other capacities. For fertilizer and de-weeding pellet products, I recommend the tougher cousin—the Scotts walk-behind. For de-icing? I haven’t found anything that works better than my gloved hands at this point.
Well, like Meatloaf said—one outta three ain’t bad. Or something like that.
rustproof and fully assembled.great for applying seed fertilizer and other products on small areas-or for spreading ice melting products in winter.erg...More at UnbeatableSale, Inc.
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
Sold as 4 UNITS at $10.81 per unit. (1 unit = each.) For fertilizer, grass seed or ice melt. On/off trigger. Flow adjustment. Plastic. Green. Bulk. Ma...More at Amazon Marketplace
For fertilizer, grass seed or ice melt On/off trigger Holds enough product to cover approximately 1000 sq ft. Flow adjustment Plastic GreenMore at Ace Hardware
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