Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Falling Leaves, Which Garden Vac?

It's that time of year again, watch out for slippery leaves on the road.

However, I have a question.

In your experience, what is the best garden vac for collecting leaves etc.

I've got an old blower but that just creates a whirlwind and moves the leaves somewhere else.

Treat your neighbour to one too.. You'll have hours of fun shifting the pile over each others hedge..

On a serious note, I don't I'm afraid. One with a nicely washable collecting bag I think..

Bob

I live in the middle of a forest in a lodge and the wind shifts the leaves on my decking !!!

Sorry no help..but what did you expect ?!!!

Vacs IME are all crap unless the leaves are very small, very dry, and very few in number. On anything larger than a suburban handkerchief garden they are a waste of time I reckon. Get a Stihl blower with a small nozzle, you can get quite skilled with a bit of practice.

I employ a man to carry out such tasks.

Ours gravitate to one corner of the garden and make a nice hibernation zone for hedgehogs.

We collect a few from the neighbours garden to put in the hedgehog home that my son built in the garden too, these little pricklies need all the help they can get. Now the farmers are not allowed (legally anyway) to shoot the badgers they are eating lots more hedgehogs as their numbers increase.

In answer to the question the professionals use Stihl, pay once for a good one being the theory they tell me.

I have in the past borrowed Billy Goat leaf collectors , they were pretty large , but very effective and would pick up more or less anything including wet leaves into a large collection bag .

YES! to all the above.

Some additional thoughts:

Stihl blowers are two-stroke, Honda are four-stroke (less monkeying about finding the right oil to mix in, no oiled up plug at the start of each Autumn...)

If the leaves are on lawn areas and you already have a ride-on mower, you can set the cutting deck high and the rotary blades (not the cylinder type) will create enough lift to gather leaves. This works best with dry leaves and a rear-exit mower - as the side exit types are more prone to blocking.

Mostly I let them go where nature takes them, but I do have a cheap B&Q blower that works well when I want to blow leaves from the lawn to under the hedges where they provide winter shelter for all sorts of things!

My wife said the same thing.