Tell me about leaf blowers

Would anyone like to offset their leaf clearing activities?

In return for money I can supply you with a certificate that I won’t be clearing leaves in some of the many, many hectares of woodland that I look after.

This is how I clear my conscience of the 50 square metres I like to keep clear of leaves in my garden (mower on high, leaf litter onto the raised bed).

I’ve a big AEG electric blower. It has a “turbo” button that makes it go extra fast… which reminds me, I need to get some roller skates.

The deck and front path and rooves get covered in them all year round (eucalypts seem to drop leaves constantly) and they won’t decompose there. Well they’ll probably wreck the rooves.

It’s marginally easier than using a big broom in all honesty.

We have a conservation covenant on most of the rest of the six acres. Apart from the driveway it’s pretty much all native flora left to its own devices.

Keep it coming, this is gold!

That’s dead leaves for you, i guess.

It is the very pinnacle of first world middle aged man (not) problems and amuses me no end.

You must be new around here. This is a mountain biking forum. Trivia is what we do.

Would you buy a piece of utterly pointless equipment to blow the badger off your precious lawn though? Wait a minute, I would!

Don’t be stupid, blowing wouldn’t work, they’re far too heavy.  But if I had so many dead badgers in my garden that clearing them took a significant time when I’d rather be out riding my bike, I’d be keen to speed the process up, definitely.  I’d probably be starting a thread on here about whether scooping machines or spiking machines are more efficient.  I reckon if my garden was filling up of dead badgers a few times every autumn, I probably wouldn’t be the only one.

In the same way, I’ve got an electric washing machine, electric hedge trimmers and a petrol mower, so I can do jobs more quickly.

The horse chestnut in the front garden has a leaf miner infestation. Do I have permission to dispose of the leaves?

After committing this heinous crime for two autumns the problem is very much reduced.

But AITA?

A dead badger in the middle of the garden would eventually decompose as well, but I’d probably choose to clear it up.

A blower is going to struggle to shift that – best to run over it with a lawn mower

Why worry about anything. I mean we don’t need houses we could just live in mud huts. Bicycles? Tarmac cycle lanes? Just messing up the natural world aren’t they.

( ! )

Seems like a good moment to celebrate the return of the arsicon

I’d not bother blowing them anywhere – wouldn’t be useful in my garden, perhaps there are some situations where it might be – but do rake up a few builders’ bags each year and take them to the tip because they would completely overwhelm my garden otherwise (especially the paved and gravelled areas where they collect in huge drifts).

I did try composting them all at first but it’s far too much material and the effort of taking them to the tip (where all garden waste gets properly shredded and composted anyway) isn’t much compared to the collection.

Got one from the lidl middle isle for £25 the other day. Primary use case was to blow or vacuum dried leaves off decorative pebbles which otherwise need to be picked by hand. While I was at it I did the rest of the garden. I thought it did a good job. Longevity tbc.

You win a song!

@DrJ

We are surrounded by big trees and every autumn all the leaves fall off into our garden. A leaf blower would be handy, but i wonder about the practicality. I don’t want a petrol motor one, and I wonder if an electric one is sufficiently powerful, particularly if battery. What do the STW experts advise ?

just my 2 cents, I use one of these Macallister leaf blower as we have a massive tree down the bottom of the garden that drops tonnes of leaves onto the decking and it becomes a slippery place to walk. It’s quite a large decked area, so worth keeping clear.

tried an 18v battery powered one but it was useless. IMVHO mains power or petrol is the way to go. As unless you are onto the leaves instantly they get damp, hold and trap water like a barsteward etc and only a mains power leaf blower mulcher will pick them up. I use the mulcher function every year and it’s really effective. Even with mains power it’s still sometimes not the easiest task.

Mains Stihl. Waste of money. has too little puff. So I bought a wide leaf rake for about £20 and have been using it ever since (more than five years). The blower hangs in the shed in shame. I can’t imagine battery powered ones have more blow than mains. petrol or rake.

Not what  the OP wants but…. I use a petrol Stihl blower. Excellent, lots of power no mains lead. I’ve got 4 very large Beech trees in the front garden, plus Maple, a Sycamore…. More in the back garden. I use the blower all year and at the moment I need to have a serious session after last weekends blow.

I can’t imagine battery powered ones have more blow than mains. petrol or rake.

This is pretty much what I guessed. Rake it is.

I can’t imagine battery powered ones have more blow than mains. petrol or rake.

No need to imagine when you can look it up: 9N blowing force for the mains BGE71 they sell at the moment, 15N for the Battery BGA60.

My 36V battery one does 9N.  I find it usefully powerful.

I can’t imagine battery powered ones have more blow than mains. petrol or rake.

This is pretty much what I guessed. Rake it is.

He imagined wrong though. A mains blower will be a low powered domestic thing. I use the pro battery version of Stihl blower and it’s just as powerful as the petrol one I used to have but much quieter, lighter and no fumes to inhale. Depends on the size of your problem though and if you want to spend a couple hundred or so or just do the manual labour with a rake.

You must be new around here. This is a mountain biking forum. Trivia is what we do.

To be fair this section of the MTB forum is about as far away from the subject matter as it is possible to get. I just find the whole concept of collecting and disposing of leaves, or blowing them about a bit, really funny. It is way too easy to get people slightly mardy on here too. That just makes it more fun!

I strongly recommend one of these, I saw a council employee using one and then bought one, one of the best twenty quid i’ve spent.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/spear-jackson-garden-tidy-leaf-grabber/95262?tc=DX3&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPwtABDG4ZRRuu9eu7tYK_kvy&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmt24BhDPARIsAJFYKk0YVl9RF9C2agKIbP_ISatcSAfNvSFjh5cg7QjON8mcSrV9PWaum_QaApTDEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Dead badger – this thread has peaked.

If you’ve got enough leaves to consider buying a blower, there is no way you’ll be able to use one in ‘suck’ mode. The bag will fill every 30 seconds.

In ‘blow’ mode you need a corner to blow them into otherwise you’re wasting your time.

Mowing them up with a lawnmower is easily the most efficient way I’ve found.

Leave them you say…  I end up with a pile waist deep at the bottom of my garden.  It takes two goes to clear with the most powerful backpack Stihl petrol unit.  Hate my garden sometimes 🙁

kilo

https://www.screwfix.com/p/spear-jackson-garden-tidy-leaf-grabber/95262?tc=DX3&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPwtABDG4ZRRuu9eu7tYK_kvy&gclid=Cj0KCQjwmt24BhDPARIsAJFYKk0YVl9RF9C2agKIbP_ISatcSAfNvSFjh5cg7QjON8mcSrV9PWaum_QaApTDEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Yep that’s what I use after blowing them to one corner of a big hotel/restaurant car park. Also a leaf blower is almost essential if your trying to clear daily leaf fall from under 30+ outside tables & chairs. I’m still using petrol with 2 separate Makita BHX2501 blowers, 1 set up as a blower and the other as a sucker/vac. TBH the sucker is a lesser used item as there are often twigs mixed in and they cause blockages & unless you have a steel impeller then wear is a big problem.

Pointless bit of kit to do a futile job.

Pointless bit of kit to do a futile job.

0/2

I bought a cheap mains one from Aldi a year or two ago. Works pretty well as long as you don’t leave the leaves to get damp and compacted. It can get blocked but if you go steady it’s fine.

We have a small garden and a big tree. If we just leaf them (as I have in the past) the grass is ruined for the following summer and the boarders end up like a snow drift of brown sludge.

Its the most pointless task anyone could choose to do. Just leave them, its good for the soil.

I love the way the people with manor houses are all along the lines of “just leave them, it’s good for the deer / lawn / the gardener deals with it / use the spare garden” etc.

The house is almost buried up to the first floor by leaves at the moment and I don’t have a lawn to let the leaves rot down onto.