I'm considering it. For the past few years we haven't been able to find anyone to do a Fall clean-up for a reasonable price. So a couple of weeks ago on a nice-ish day I decided to rake the back yard. As much as I despise raking, I figured I could use the exercise. Well, after 4 and a half hours, I had raked and hauled 18 piles of leaves into the woods out back. Looking out there now you'd never know I even picked up a rake. So depressing. Apparently I should have waited 'til all the leaves had fallen.

I don't like the idea of raking again, so I'm wondering if it's worth the $50 to rent a gas powered leaf blower from HD for a day. We have a corded Black & Decker electric one, but between dealing with an extension cord and the fact that it's not exactly a super high-powered one, I think that would be futile for the volume of leaves involved. But having seen others use the backpack gas blowers, I get the feeling it one doesn't do it right, it could make a bigger mess than before.

Any caveats?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2022 04:25PM by wurm.

What size area are you dealing with? Have you considered chopping up the leaves with your mower?

There’s nothing wrong with renting from Home Depot but a) is there a neighbor you could borrow one from? B) have you considered buying a battery operated blower? My ego is quite nice although I’m not sure what your runtime needs are. It’s plenty powerful.

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I also have an EGO. I have 3 tools and each came with a battery. One 5.0 Ah battery died and EGO sent me a 7.5 Ah replacement battery. Now I have 2 of 2.5 and a 7.5. The last one is heavy!

Anyway, with all 3 batteries I can do a lot of work on my 0.8 Acre property. Kids rake, I use the leaf blower, we change. All 3 of us can do it, no need to pay $250 like last year.

Thanks for your thoughts. It's a little more than an acre. But there are a lot of leaves. I could probably mow over the ones in the back yard, since the first round of removal has been done. But the front is very thick with them. The electric blower we have is okay for the driveway and deck, and even for surface stuff. But part of the benefit of using a rake is getting dead grass up along with the leaves. A blower won't quite do that. The 'lawn' under the leaves is pretty horrible anyway, so if the weather stays too cold, I may just say the hell with it and wait until Spring.

I used to mow and blow my leaves with my mower.
It might take a few passes, but it beats the hell out of raking.
You can also get a leaf “rake” attachment that you tow behind your lawn mower/tractor.
I had one of those. It also sweeps up some of the loose grass, as you can use it to remove grass clippings, too.
I’ll see if I can find a link to what it looked like.

Similar to this:
Ohio Steel 42-in Lawn Sweeper
[www.lowes.com]

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2022 07:42PM by rgG.

No ride-on/tractor for me. I'm a pusher (or more accurately a walk-behinder). Thanks for that link, though. It brought back memories of what my parents ended up buying when I used to b!tch and moan about raking back when I was a kid. It worked a=bout as well as I did.

Sounds like you’re interested in dethatching your lawn. Are you sure you need to? I’m not sure when it’s needed, but people often do it unnecessarily.

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[lawnlove.com]

Actually, I have no interest in dethatching the lawn, such as it is. It would be analogous to polishing a turd. I'll be content to get rid of the leaves and pine needles.

I have one of these that I bought when we had 9 huge oak trees in our yard. I'd use it a half dozen times through the season. It is spectacular: [www.homedepot.com]

Now that we only have 2 big trees in the yard it's overkill. I still use it, typically twice a year, during the big leaf drop times. One hint--if there are a LOT of leaves it really works much better to blow the leaves into big piles about 4 feet high and then rake a bunch of them onto a tarp and haul them to the woods. With only the 2 trees I don't have to rake them at all. I'll have piles that are 2-2 1/2 feet high and the rolling blower works fine with them.

If you can rent one of those from HD, I'd do it. I also have a gas/oil backpack blower that I use a lot surrounding those big leaf drops. It's much better than raking. Again, if there's lots of leaves it works better to make a pile, rake it onto a tarp and haul it. The backpack blower doesn't have nearly the power of the rolling one so if I got to piles that were a couple of feet high I'd rake some onto a tarp and haul them.

I'm with mattkime and the others. MOW THOSE LEAVES! Make 5 passes if need be. I don't care how thick they are; I just raise the deck of the riding mower for the first coupled of passes. I don't use baggers on my mower. I just always direct the mower output towards the forest. I have developed a effective technique to get the job done., and now do the same for my neighbor.

My brother has 3 acres of lawn with perhaps a dozen large maple trees. When raking by hand he would accumulate about 100 bags for pickup. After cutting them a number of times with the riding mower, he is down to 25 bags or so.

With a riding mower, it really works.

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Ed (modelamac)

I think I will just put an OUT OF ORDER
sticker on my head and call it a day.

I saw somebody just the other day using one of those rolling walk-behind ones. Even if I were inclined to buy one (I'm not), I can't imagine having much control over where you're blowing things. Obviously there is, but that's a skill set of its own. You mention making piles and raking them onto a tarp, then hauling. That's exactly what I did for the 18 piles I raked a couple of weeks ago. That was almost as time consuming as the raking itself.

Even though I don't have a riding mower, that mowing right over them is sounding better and better. But your brother still had to remove them after mowing? Seems to defeat the purpose.

In the "mow them until they disappear" camp.

What I -DON'T- recommend is what one of my neighbors has done in previous years....rake all of the leaves into a pile, then ram their bagging lawnmower into the pile to mulch them up. Kinda funny to watch though.

I vote for mowing-only.

I collected and bagged them once when I had my teenage son do it. He thought it would be a piece of cake with our zero-turn and attached bagger. It wasn’t. Now I let the wind and my neighbors take care of my leaves.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.