4 Best Home Depot Finds To Level Out A Bumpy Lawn

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Lawn-leveling can be a challenge for the DIYer. Without the benefit of outright grading equipment, the homeowner is often hemmed in by a relatively small number of available tools, which aren't always extraordinarily effective. And when they are, it's often in a very narrow band of circumstances. Lawn-leveling rakes, for example, are most effective when leveling bare topsoil. Or consider lawn rollers — a tool that's effective at leveling, but potentially more damaging to turfgrass than it's worth. We've taken all of this into consideration and found the best lawn-leveling tools at Home Depot.

Because of our selection criteria, which required (among other things) that the products be in stock locally, a handful of categories couldn't be included at all. Fortunately, it's not at all clear that those are the most generally useful tools for leveling a lawn. Indeed, the products we selected — a landscaping rake, a tamper, a lawn roller, and a digging shovel — might be all a DIYer needs in most circumstances. Short of a Bobcat, that is.

It should be clearly stated that it's always going to be easier to level a bumpy bit of land when it's covered with loose soil rather than grass. Filling in some low spots in your lawn with sand will generally be effective, but leveling high spots might prove more challenging if you're trying to avoid damage. Your best bet in those cases is probably to remove the sod before doing your leveling.

We were disappointed to find no lawn-leveling rakes at any of the closest Home Depot locations or, in fact, even available for 1-2-day delivery. But we were pleasantly surprised to find that our landscaping rake pick might be nearly as good. Lots of reviewers indicated that the Razor-Back 36-inch aluminum landscape rake ($69.98) was great for leveling. In fact, while the Razor-Back got 4.4 stars across 815 ratings, it averaged over 4.7 stars in reviews that mentioned leveling. For what it's worth, no leveling rake rated higher than the Razor-Back, and that makes sense because the double-sided rake was designed with leveling specifically in mind. It's worth noting that YouTuber George of Princess Cut Lawn Care included the Razor-Back rather than a leveling rake in his list of Home Depot finds for smoothing and leveling a bumpy lawn.

Reviewers like the width, compared with a standard 18 inches or less common to most bow rakes, even sometimes eliminating the need for a screed board. And while the scraper blade on the back of the head got plenty of praise, some reviewers expressed concern about the tendency of the aluminum tines to bend when confronted with obstinate objects like roots and heavy rocks — even one five-star reviewer mentioned this problem. It's unsurprising for an aluminum rake that's very lightweight at 3.88 lbs, but the majority of buyers (87 percent of whom recommend the Razor-Back rake) had no problem using it to get the leveling job done, even with a substrate as challenging as 2B gravel.

Speaking of gravel, our next category is mostly known for smoothing gravel driveways and skipping a pricey compactor, rather than level lawns. Tampers can, after all, deal quite a bit of damage to the grass they're tampering with, and tamping can lead to soil compaction ... which might cause you to have a temper tantrum. Okay, enough of that.

Still, tampers are unquestionably effective in some circumstances, and the Razor-Back 10-inch-by-10-inch steel tamper is appreciated by reviewers to the tune of 4.7 stars across 1160 ratings, with 97% of reviewers recommending it. It does have its drawbacks, though. Within reason, weight is a positive thing for tampers, and, at 13 lbs the Razor-Back offers up .13 lbs per square inch of tamping surface. The runner up, Husky's 8-by-8-inch steel-handle tamper, weighs in at 10.7 lbs, or .167 lbs per square inch. While the Husky ratings are reasonably good, only 69% of purchasers recommend it, mostly because of the fragility of its thin tubular steel handle and weak welds.

The Razor-Back's steel handle has the same problem, though apparently to a lesser degree. One reviewer bemoaned its limitations for frequent use, saying, "For every day use it only last about a month, the steel handle snaps off right at the gussets." Some reviewers suggested a wood replacement handle would be better, and it happens that True Temper, the manufacturer of the Razor-Back tamper, offers a 10-by-10 tamper with a hardwood handle ($86.99 at Zoro).

Novice homeowners would naturally expect lawn rollers to be quite heavy, but their lightweight is a key feature everyone should consider when buying one. The best choice appears to be the Brinly-Hardy 18-by-24-inch push/tow lawn roller ($199), in part because it is small and light. With a 270-lb, 28-gallon drum capacity, it might sound heavy, but drums are typically filled with water before use, and even the smallish 18-by-24 Brinly-Hardy drum could potentially damage your soil at that weight. Lighter is better for established grass because of the risk of over-compaction, and this lawn roller is about as light as one can practically be by virtue of its size and its lightweight (but corrosion-proof) polyethylene drum.

The Brinly-Hardy roller attaches to most tractors, ZTVs, and ATVs, and can also be pushed by hand. Its drum has a large opening for easy filling, and reviewers appreciate it to the tune of 4.5 stars across 807 ratings and 92 percent of them recommending this lawn roller. There was, in fact, no higher-rated roller at Home Depot, even among out-of-stock offerings, and the 270-lb Brinly-Hardy was also MowGuide's top pick. The order-only Angeles Home 20-by-50-inch steel lawn roller potentially has better specs and a comparable price, but it is obviously not in stock and has very few ratings.

We had some trouble with the digging shovel category, perhaps digging too much and being unable to ditch either of the two shovels we dig the most. In the end, we — like Home Depot reviewers ... but only by a little — preferred the Anvil short-handle compact digging shovel ($16.74). Anvil is a Home Depot house brand, but this little 18-inch, wood-handled shovel has a lot to recommend it. We liked the electrostatic powder coating on its carbon steel head, the varnished eucalyptus handle, and the D-grip top handle.

But we worried that the compact shovel was too short ... and that its shortness skewed the ratings. With 4.7 stars across 516 ratings, it's hard to argue that the Anvil has any major problems, but it does have meaningful ones. Its handle is 30 inches shorter than the runner-up, Razor-Back's PowerEdge 48-inch wood-handle digging shovel ($29.98), which received 4.6 stars across 824 ratings that are apparently shared with Razor-Back's $34.98 fiberglass-handle version. But in spite of its sharp PowerEdge blade, SuperSocket protection against breaking, and large PowerStep kickplate, only 77 percent of reviewers recommend the Razor-Back, compared with 95 percent for the Anvil, owing mostly to the Razor-Back's clear problems with durability, in spite of the SuperSocket gimmick.

Honestly, it's probably a matter of preference and particular needs. The anvil does have less reach, less leverage, and a smaller blade that holds less soil, all of which caused one reviewer to describe it as "[w]ell-made ... but far too small for any but the lightest jobs."

In picking the best Home Depot lawn-leveling products, we identified all applicable tools and applied a trust-but-verify methodology to the feedback of reviewers on the Home Depot website. We read and compared reviews for the competing products, and cross-checked all product ratings with Amazon's ratings and reviews (with the exception of the winning digging shovel, since the Anvil house brand isn't represented anywhere by Home Depot). Importantly, we only considered products that were in stock in at least one of the 6 closest stores, reasoning that if you are going to place an order, there's no particular reason (again, aside from the shovel) to do it with Home Depot.

Where possible — as with lawn rollers — we considered the guidance of third-party professional reviewers. And in the case of tampers, we came close to recommending a product not sold by Home Depot, for reasons we made painfully clear.

Several product categories were excluded by our criteria. We examined no laser levels because of the poor selection and high price of suitable rotary laser levels — not to mention the fact that it's generally easier to run a string between two stakes to check for level. Home Depot has no drag harrows — an alternative solution to rakes for leveling both gravel driveways and topsoil — in stock, though there are well-regarded products by Vevor and others. This, too, is easy enough to DIY. Local stores similarly had no barrel-style rolling spreaders in stock. And, as mentioned before, lawn-leveling rakes, which are ideal for top-dressing and leveling on established lawns, were also not in stock and had poor reviews anyway.