Best Sod Plugger – Buyer’s Guide

Best Sod PluggerPlanning to get the most effective sod plugger around?

Congrats!

You arrived at the appropriate web page today.

Prices for sod plugger range from inexpensive to costly. We hope this list helps you pick out the best sod pluggers.

Best Sod Plugger Reviews 2020

When it comes to buying sod plugger, the experience is a little different than other abrasive & finishing products.

But, exactly how to select the appropriate tumbler? As you can visualize, there are hundreds of different models out there.

However, when you are buying brass tumbler, you need to keep some things in mind.

Look at the comparison table. I will provide you with more information that will help you in our Buyer’s Guide later.

Product NameHow much it digsOur Rating(Out of 5)Current Price
ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool 2 & 1/8 inch 5.0 Check Price
Yard Butler Sod Plugger Zoysia 3 inch 4.8 Check Price
Garden Weasel Bulb Planter 3.5 inch 4.7 Check Price
CHUMAA Bulb Planter 3.5 inch 4.3 Check Price
Corona LG 3720 SodPLUGGER 3 inch 4.3 Check Price

1. ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool – Best Rated Sod Plugger

ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool ProPlugger is one of the best brands. ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool is a great product for your garden. It works great and it will save lots of your time.

This an awesome plugger, very easy to use. You can follow the instructions and water my lawn two days before using it. You didn’t have any issues with pulling the plugs and dumping them out by flipping the plugger upside down.

The Pro Plugger is extremely well made and is an easy to use tool for pulling grass plugs and filling in the holes. This is zoysia grass so you can not anticipate a quick fix, but so far after transplanting 50 or so plugs you will be impressed with this ultimate solution.

Make sure you follow the watering instructions so that your soil is neither too dry (too hard to pull plugs out) nor too muddy (mud is easy to remove, but muddy plugs are too sticky and soft to be useful). Also, keep a mallet handy for the moments when you need to change the rings that determine the plug depth. Even after collecting only a few plugs, the ring is going to be stuck on the ProPlugger pretty tightly.

But it’s not so easy to know what you’re picking up in your “destination” (i.e., weedy, distressed) area. If your destination area is is just dead grass, no problem. You pull out the plugs with dead grass, and those “holes” make room for the plugs with healthy grass. But if your destination area is 40% – 80% weeds, you may think you’re pulling up weedy plugs and be mistaken.

Sometimes the weeds just bent to the side while I lined up the ProPlugger to “unplug” the weeds. When this happened, the weeds stayed in the ground and the plugs I removed just had young or ailing grass in them.

The ProPlugger is very sturdy and you can use this product for many years. The rubber handles are the first thing to wear out on high-quality metal products like this, so you can tie long rags around the rubber handles that can be easily replaced each time the rags wear out. This way the rubber is unlikely to ever wear out, and you would have comfortable handles for the life of the ProPlugger.

If you are making sod plugs of centipede grass from an established and healthy portion of the yard, to plant in some bad spots. You had been using a handheld bulb planter, which was definitely not ideal for the job. If you are searching for a better tool, this product would be perfect for you.

The ProPlugger, while one of the more expensive options, solves this problem with a simpler but more effective design. Then you can pick a good donor area of the yard, and repeatedly push the tool into the ground until it fills up. Moving over to the bad area of the yard, you can turn it upside down, and just like the video, the outcome a bunch of perfectly cylindrical sod plugs. Next, you need to use it to punch perfectly shaped holes in the ground for the plugs to go into, then you can bring the extracted dirt plugs over to the donor site to fill those holes.

Hint: Make sure that the soil is moist to make using the tool easier. I also carried along with me a 5-gallon pail to empty the plugs into. I mixed the plugs with some slow-release fertilizer to give my newly planted bulbs a good start.

You can try to seed and patch mix to fix an area of your yard. The ProPlugger works like a charm. It makes great plugs holes and plugs from sod. Since the plugger was the same size, plugs were easy to put in. The plugs would be a little smaller than the holes, but easy to fix with peat moss and soil.

This product will help for a better harvest. Sod plugger is a useful tool for gardening. If you are looking for a nice sod plugger in an affordable price. Then ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool is perfect for you.

Pros
  • Multi-purpose use
  • Perfect for digging
  • 30 days warranty
  • Very handy
  • Made in the USA
Cons
  • The handlebar padding is pretty cheap

2. Yard Butler Sod Plugger Zoysia – Best Sod Plugger For Lawn

Yard Butler Sod Plugger ZoysiaYard Butler is an experienced company in the market. Yard Butler Sod Plugger is very useful for gardening. This little tool is great. It’s easy to use and you can make your works pretty quickly using this tool.

This thing works great for pulling up plugs to transplant as well. So if you have a source, for say St. Augustine, it will pull them up very nicely so you can then transplant them elsewhere.

You can purchase your first 72 plugs. Then you will use this to go and pull 400-500 plugs from your inlaws yard to put in yours. If you pull 400-500 plugs, say 18″ apart and fill in the holes with dirt, the grass will grow back over it within weeks. You could not imagine doing this by hand or with a shovel.

If they really wanted to make this thing 6 stars, they would have some type of lever to eject the plug out. There is definitely a way to use leverage with a lever to eject the plug. Also, they include some plastic thing on the top. You will be very pleased with this item.

The last statement, if the ground is bone dry, I just don’t think it would work well (nor any tool similar to it). You would make plans to harvest plugs after a good rain or put them down after a good rain. Any tool of this type would not work well on bone dry soil (at least in north MS where I live). I 100% recommend this tool.

The 2″x2″ metal plate that ejects the dirt/plug/ etc, is made of very thin metal. In a relatively short period of time, the corners began to bend up. So you have a low center and high corners. This will help cause you so to break apart as it gets worse and worse. You can weld so you cut off the cheap piece they put on there and welded a thicker piece there. The same cheap metal piece is that the top and it won’t last long-hitting with a rubber mallet that is required for ejecting clay.

There should be some type of hinged piece at the bottom to hold loose plugs in place until you get it out of the ground. When removing a square plug of soil (no grass) it is easy. Just step on it and pull it out to remove a 2″ square brick of soil. However, when there are good roots, it can be hard to pull the plug out of the ground.

A solution would be if one side of the 4 piece cutter had a hinge, then you could move the handle out like a post hole digger to “pinch” the plug and help it come out. If you are doing many many plugs, then something like this would be very helpful.

The teeth are not sharp. So you need to spend the time to sharpen them with a file as it will make a big difference. Unfortunately, they will not spend the time to ship it sharpened so you will need to take the 15-20 minutes necessary to put a decent edge on every side of every tooth using a hand file.

Pro tip: try dipping the end of the gadget in a bucket of water between plugs. This may improve operation in some soils.

It is a well-made tool. You can use this primarily to transfer healthy St Augustine grass to a bare spot that died off. Plunger component is used to eject plug that sticks (soil moisture). You can use a rubber mallet to quickly and safely pop out the plug.

You can use this gadget to dig holes for 72 grass plugs and you will be pleased with its quality and performance. As long as the soil was moist and more or less soft rather than dry and hard, using this gadget was pretty easy. It worked regardless, though the plugs weren’t as neat. You can wash the caked mud off at the end of the day was a chore, but doable and worthwhile.

Yard Butler Sod Plugger works great. It makes grass softer and it just pushes right in with one foot. This Sod Plugger is a perfect tool for gardening.

Pros
  • 30 days satisfaction guarantee
  • Great for transplanting plans
  • Plugs fit tightly into prepared holes
  • Durable powdered coated steel tool
  • Affordable price
Cons
  • The teeth are not too sharp.

3. Garden Weasel Bulb Planter – Best Bulb Planter With Long Handle

Garden Weasel Bulb PlanterGarden Weasel is a famous brand in the market. Garden Weasel Bulb Planter is a great tool for beginners. This product will save lots of time.

This tool is a gardener’s best friend. It will work great on your sticky clay soil. The tool is constructed well with quality, sturdy materials. The cutting edge of the tool is not sharpened.

It doesn’t penetrate into dry soil. Easily, as it comes from the factory. You can use a rotary grinder to sharpen the cutting edge. Also, the product’s design seems a bit backward. The penetrating blade point is on the forward side, which doesn’t allow the tool to be positioned accurately and requires the tool to be set vertically before putting the foot and body weight on the step.

By turning the tool half a turn, the point becomes oriented closer to the user, so the point goes into the soil guiding the whole circular blade. However, the footstep becomes further away from the user, which shifts the user’s body weight away from vertical, So it is more difficult to place one’s whole body weight direcly over the cutting zone.

This Bulb planter is capable of making some really deep holes in heavy clay. You need to put your weight on it and rotate the handle a little. It cut through small roots and landscape weed cloth. The pointed tip manages to get through the clay and rock of our rather forbidding soil. You will be looking forward to planting spring bulbs.

You can move the mulch aside beforehand. You can’t expect it to go through two or three inches of wood chips. If you hit a rock, You need to move the hole over a bit and try again. It’s really an easy job.

You would be pleasantly surprised by how well it works. As long as you aren’t pushing directly into a rock, it takes out a nice little plug and makes for a lot less work. Especially if you are love to do most of the transplanting by yourself.

The product is awesome. You can plant 60 bulbs in less than 35 minutes. If the area is grassy, this tool went right through the grass. You will face no problem with the grass.

The bulb planter is really really solid. There is no chance to break the tool. It will do heavy works for hours and hours. If you are planting many bulbs, do not bother trying to empty the tool before moving to the next one. Just jump on it and the dirt will come out easily.

It is a great item for your garden. This product is Super sturdy and works perfectly. One of the best gardens implements in the market right now. The design of this tool is excellent.

This planting tool is much better constructed than other similar planters. The cutting tube on this planter is pointed and very smooth and it will cut through black plastic mulch nicely as long as it’s not too hot.

Garden Weasel Bulb Planter is easy to use. It is perfect for those gardeners who don’t have much time for gardening. This bulb planter is really affordable. It is a superb tool for gardening.

Pros
  • Sharp blade and pointed tip
  • Durable strong steel design
  • Made from carbon steel
  • Comfortable t bar design
  • Works great on sticky clay soil
Cons
  • Pretty expensive.
  • Difficult to remove the dirt

4. CHUMAA Bulb Planter – Bulb Planter With Enhanced Bottom Edge

CHUMAA Bulb PlanterCHUMAA is a nice brand. CHUMAA Bulb Planter is a useful and great tool for gardening. This Bulb Planter is lightweight and easy to use.

This product has a fantastic addition to your yard arsenal. It is well made nice welds and solid construction. It makes easy work out of planting live plants or bulbs. this tool cuts through tough dirt and makes a nice hole to plant.

You can use this product to extract a core of dymondia and transfer it to another area that was bare. It will take some practice to get the technique down and will find that moistening the soil first was helpful. This made the extraction of a fully intact core and also prep of a smooth-sided core receptacle.

Dymondia roots run 4-6 inches deep and you will able to get a deep enough core from CHUMAA Sod Plugger. It’s still early but it looks like the sod plugs are taking well in their new location.

This tool was great for planting bulbs. No constant bending and squatting, easy soil release, comfortable handles. It can dig up to 3.5inch diameter planting holes quickly.

The handle of this Bulb Planter is very handy. This gardening tool is easy to use. Anyone can use this product easily and quickly.

This product is able to plant 50 tulip bulbs in no time. Construction is very sturdy and the mechanism to release the soil works really well. It’s a great product for beginners.

This is a multi-use garden product. It can spring and fall bulbs, annuals, ground covers, vegetables, and more. It makes a good lawn. It also works as a sod plugger, weeding tool, soil sample tool, and drip-edge fertilizing tool. This Bulb Planter is really helpful to plant flowers.

CHUMAA Bulb Planter is affordable. It’s cheaper than many Bulb Planters. Also, it will give you a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If your budget is low and you want a nice product for your garden. Then this Bulb Planter is perfect for you.

Pros
  • Multi-use garden tool
  • Simple & easy to use
  • Durable strong steel design
  • Comfortable t-bar design.
  • nice welds and solid construction.
Cons
    • Pretty expensive.

5. Corona LG 3720 SodPLUGGER – Sod Plugger with Turf Release Plunger

Corona LG 3720 SodPLUGGERCorona is one of the best companies in the market. Corona LG 3720 SodPLUGGER is a great product for gardening. It will make your garden jobs easy and comfortable.

It is great to plug grass. This product has a quick-release plunger. The handles of this plugger is very comfortable. It has a slip-resistant footplate.

The color of the plugger is red. It is a bright and beautiful color. It is light and easy to use. This product is perfect for lawns and gardens. Anyone can use this product easily.

For using the plugger, you need to place your foot on footpad and step down firmly to form a plug from the desired grass/sod. Then use the plugger to remove the plug. After that plant, the sod plugs into a new hole.

You have to create a properly sized of holes to accept the standard grass/sod plug. The weight of this tool is 4 pounds. It works well on bare dirt. It goes 3 inches deep.

With a plugger that cuts both the plug removed and the plug installed, a guaranteed perfect fit. Just water the yard a few hours before you start, the ground is softer.

It’s sturdy enough to do the job in most medium to light soils. Water a day or so before you begin to soften the soil. After penetrating the sod rock the tool back and forth a few times before you pull it out to break the bond of the roots under the plug.

It fills grassless areas without the expense of buying and installing sod. This sod Plugger creates properly sized holes to accept standard 3-in.

It will work for grass and sod plugs. The quick-release plunger efficiently removes sod plugs Heat-treated, high carbon steel construction for lasting durability.

The plugger has Slip-resistant traction which groves designed into the footplate. You can save lots of your time in gardening by using this product.

Corona LG 3720 SodPLUGGER is a great garden tool. It is affordable than much another sod plugger. If your budget is low and you are looking for a perfect sod plugger, then this product is perfect for you.

Pros
  • Create proper holes
  • Affordable price
  • Quick-release plunger
  • High carbon steel construction
  • Comfortable handles
Cons
  • Difficult to use in heavy clay soil.

Best Brass Tumbler – Buyer’s Guide

You need to search for the following features while picking the best sod plugger.

If you are buying this for the first time you should not only aware of the advantages of sod plugger but also aware of the accuracy of it.

Bottom Line

Making a decision about which sod plugger is the best for you is not an easy job, but we tried our best to recommend the best one. If you are not exactly sure which plugger to get, we recommend the ProPlugger 5-IN-1 Lawn Tool.

In case you feel that we left out some other great sod plugger, don’t hesitate to let us know.

John Wayne

This is John Wayne's website, and this is a bit of copy about him. He has a life long desire to test all kinds of tools and wreck them if needed. He has an engineering background, loves playing baseball and football, ran home to watch films, listened to The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and read magic trick books!

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