Garden Tips: Make leaf cleanup less onerous

This past weekend, when employing an ordinary rake to clean the deluge of leaves that fell from my trees, I started thinking that there must be a better way. There must be some tools or gadgets that would make leaf cleanup less onerous.

While my inexpensive rake was doing a pretty good job, I wondered if there was a rake that could make the job even easier. I did a little research and came across the Lee Valley Power Rake. While power is in its name, the power comes from the gardener. This rake is designed to “glide back and forth across the ground” and only infrequently needs to be lifted, decreasing the stress on a back. Lee Valley points out that it does an impressive job raking leaves, grass clippings and yard waste. It has a 5-inch fiberglass handle and a 24-inch wide head made of high strength plastic. It is available exclusively from Lee Valley (www.leevalley.com.)

If I was a little less energetic, I might be tempted to seek out the self-propelled Bosch ALR 900 Electric Lawnraker. This machine looks like lawn mower and has a 900-watt electric powerdrive motor. It folds for storage. Beneath the raker is a rotating 12.5-inch wideplastic drum that holds replaceable metal tines. When set at the highest setting, the tines rake up lawn debris that gets sucked into a 13 gallon collection box at the back of the raker, much like a bag on a mower. Set at lower settings, the raker will remove lawn moss and thatch.

The review recommends the raker, indicating it has adequate torque to handle the tough jobs. However, I do not think it is for me because I suspect I would be emptying the relatively small collection box every couple of minutes with my leaves.

I will still need to rake my leaves the old-fashioned way. The real problem is picking them up after raking them into piles. My hands are small, making each pick-up quite paltry. However, I use two plastic dustpans to scoop up the leaves, making each scoopful more worthwhile. There are manufactured leaf scoops or claws designed specifically for picking up leaves. I like the looks of the Releaf Leaf Scoops that are ergonomically designed large plastic claws with large internal handholds and scoops at the tips. They say that they turn little hands like mine into big bear paws.

When cleaning leaves or other yard waste, another great gadget is the Fiskars 30 Gallon (22-inch diameter) Hard Shell Bottom Kangaroo Garden Bag. This is a pop-up container made of canvas-like polyester. It has a hard plastic bottom and handles that make it easy to drag or haul around the yard. When picking up yard waste that is not going to be composted, I line the bag with a 30 gallon garbage bag. When the work is done, the garden bag easily collapses and stores flat. You can findleaf scoops and pop-up lawn bags, as well as the lawnraker, at Amazon.com.

This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 2:25 AM with the headline "Garden Tips: Make leaf cleanup less onerous."