Our Top Tips (and Best Tools) for Clearing Leaves from a Garden

Clearing leaves is a key garden maintenance task every autumn, so let’s take a look at the most effective ways you can do it. We’ll start things off by summarising the reasons why leaf collecting is such an important job. We’ll then examine not only the best garden tools for clearing leaves but for collecting and disposing of them too. Also, along the way, we’ll show you some creative ways you can use fallen leaves to benefit your home and garden.

The Reasons for Clearing Leaves

Due to their eye-catching shades of red, orange and yellow, dry fallen leaves have an extremely attractive appearance. What’s more, they’re relatively harmless. However, once those leaves get damp, not only do they become an eyesore, they can cause you significant problems too.

The most obvious of these is that they present a slip hazard, which can prove particularly dangerous for anyone who’s elderly or infirm. In fact, wet leaves’ slippery nature also makes them a danger to motorists because they can dramatically increase a car’s stopping distance.

And it’s not just on the pavement, driveway and road that fallen leaves cause problems, but also on your lawn. They do this by blocking light and oxygen, encouraging mould and lichen, and harbouring pests.

In short, if you have fallen leaves on your property, you need to clear them up. So, let’s run through the easiest ways to clear leaves from your garden.

The Best Leaf Collector Tools

In the past, people rightly regarded brooms and rakes as the best leaf removal tools, but now there are a range of far more effective options.

Using Blowers to Clear Leaves

A basic leaf blower is the ideal garden tool for just clearing leaves. Powered by either petrol, electric or battery, a blower utilises the principle of centrifugal force to blast out air, at high speed, from its tube. This air provides sufficient force to blow leaves (yes, even wet ones) into manageable piles, for easier, more efficient disposal.

When choosing the right leaf blower for your work, along with the method of power, you will need to consider the machine’s blowing force and how it is designed to be held. For example, if you’re a professional park keeper, you’ll want a model with a higher blowing force than if you are simply clearing leaves off your own lawn and patio. Also, as you will be using it for extended periods of time, you might want to choose a model that’s held in a harness, as opposed to being carried by hand.

From amongst our impressive range of leaf blowers, here’s an example of one that’s suitable for both heavy-duty domestic and professional use.

EGO LB5804E Cordless Blower (Kit)

Powered by a 5.0 Ah battery, this is one of our best cordless leaf collectors. It can run for up to 200 minutes on a single charge, providing you with plenty of time to clear those leaves. Not just better for the environment than petrol-powered alternatives, it operates significantly quieter too.

The EGO LB5804E is designed with variable power control, including a ‘boost’ button. This provides a maximum blowing force of 18 N – easily enough to shift the most stubborn of leaves.

Backed by an outstanding 5-year domestic warranty (or 2-year professional warranty), this cordless blower kit comes with the battery, charger and two types of nozzle included in the price.

Find out more about the EGO LB5804E Cordless Blower here.

Collecting Leaves with Sweepers

If you want to go a stage further than simply blowing fallen leaves into manageable piles, you might want to try a push sweeper. These garden machines don’t just remove leaves from the ground, they collect them in a bag for you too. Some of the leaf sweeper collectors we sell are relatively simple in design but extremely effective at doing their jobs. Just like this manual leaf collector.

Agri-Fab 45-0218 Leaf Sweeper

Featuring 10-inch wheels, a 10-inch brush and 26-inch sweeping width, this manually operated garden leaf collector works up to 50% faster than a traditional garden rake.

Built from lightweight but highly durable polymer, it is effortless to push, easy to clean, and impervious to rust.

This leaf gatherer’s other notable features include an adjustable height and huge 200-litre collection bag.

Discover more about the Agri-Fab 45-0218 Leaf Sweeper now.

What to Do with the Leaves

Image courtesy of WOKANDAPIX on Pixabay.

Once you’ve blown your fallen leaves into manageable piles or collected them in your leaf sweeper’s bag, you need to decide what to do with them.

Let’s start by confirming what NOT to do, and that’s burn them. Firstly, burning leaves cause pollution, and if the leaves are wet then the fire will emit an awful lot of smoke. This smoke contains particles and gasses that range from mildly irritating to extremely dangerous, increasing the chance of respiratory infection.

Secondly, a large pile of burning leaves has the potential to become a real fire hazard, particularly if conditions are dry.

So, if you want to dispose of your leaves, it’s essential you do it the correct way, which is to ether put them in your garden waste bin or take them down the local recycling centre.

Our own view is that it’s better to utilise leaves than just throw them away. Even though these leaves are dead, they still provide a valuable resource. If you’re artistically minded, you can find plenty of creative uses for leaves here.

And if you’re a keen gardener, you’ll know that fallen leaves make an excellent ingredient for creating compost or mulch. This brings us back to garden machines because a sure-fire way to speed up and improve the composting and mulching processes is to shred your leaves as soon as you collect them.

Vacuum Shredders

A vacuum shredder isn’t just a leaf blower and collector, it will also reduce the leaves by shredding them into fine pieces. This makes the leaves easier to dispose of and speeds up the time it takes them to break down into compost or mulch.

We stock a comprehensive range of vacuum shredders and blowers, made by the world’s leading manufacturers. Here’s one of our customers’ favourites.

STIHL SHA 56 Cordless Vacuum Shredder & Blower (Shell Only)

STIHL’s first battery-powered combined shredder and blower, the SHA 56 comes with a padded shoulder strap and some very clever features to make clearing leaves a pleasure, never a chore.

With a maximum blowing force of 8 N, this leaf blower collector is easily powerful enough for heavy-duty domestic use. And with a sound power level of 94 dB(A), it’s quiet when operating too.

Thanks to a ‘click and twist’ mechanism, it’s easy to switch between the blowing and vacuuming functions. Then, once the shredder’s sharp metal blade has cut them up, your vastly reduced pile of leaves is kept in a generous 40-litre collection bag.

Discover more about the STIHL SHA 56 Cordless Vacuum Shredder & Blower now.

Vac Collectors

Vacuum collectors are also very effective machines for collecting and reducing leaves, as well as other garden debris. That said, because they tend to be more expensive than other types of leaf collector, they’re not a particularly cost-effective choice if your focus is purely on clearing leaves. Their real forte is the wide range of rubbish and debris they are capable of picking up and reducing.

Billy Goat KV601 Petrol Leaf and Litter Vacuum

This vacuum leaf collector comes with four large wheels and an easily adjustable height, so can comfortably be operated on both grass and harder surfaces.

Suitable for either commercial or residential use, it features a 4.5 kW Briggs & Stratton Professional Series™ petrol engine, five-blade serrated impeller, 69 cm working width and robust metal housing. It really does make very short work of clearing up and reducing leaves, debris and other rubbish.

This high-quality leaf vacuum is also supplied with a hard-bottomed, zipper-less bag, with two easy-to-open fasteners.

Learn more about the Billy Goat KV601 Petrol Leaf and Litter Vacuum here.

Leaf Shredders

The final type of garden machine we’re going to examine is shredders. If you already own a blower, and so are purely interested in ways to reduce your leaves, it’s definitely worth considering one of these tools. Designed to cut up a wide range of garden waste, including leaves, hedge clippings and branches, they make a shrewd investment because you’ll find plenty of use for them throughout the year.

Made by the leading names in garden machinery, our superb range of shredders includes models for domestic or commercial use, and to match every conceivable budget. Here’s one of our bestselling leaf shredders from the value end of the market.

STIGA Bio Silent 2500 Electric Shredder

This great-value electric shredder is powered by a 2,500 w motor and includes an eight-toothed rotary roller cutting system. It reliably goes about its business both quietly and effectively.

Also featuring a reverse function and adjustable cutting size, this leaf shredder is able to handle all manner of garden debris, including branches up to 40mm in diameter.

You’ll receive a plastic plunger and generous 60-litre container included in the price, so you can get your reduced leaves and other garden debris transferred from shredder to composter, with minimal fuss.

Buy the STIGA Bio Silent 2500 Electric Shredder now.

For the Best Leaf Collectors, Shop GMD!

If you need further inspiration to purchase a leaf blower, sweeper, vacuum shredder, vac collector or shredder, take a quick look outside. Think how much better your garden and driveway would look without fallen leaves, and then imagine all the wonderful uses you could find for them.

And don’t forget, if you have any questions about our leaf blowing, collecting or shredding garden machinery, our friendly, UK-based Garden Machinery Experts are always on hand to help.