On Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:52:34 +0000, Janet Tweedy
wrote:

Anyone got any views on push leaf sweepers. Not the blower sucker kind
which don't ever seem to stand up to the claims by their manufacturers
but those ones that you just push along. They seem to have larger
containers.

Janet

I'll agree with you that the average electric blower vac isn't much
use if you've got more than one fairly small tree (I only really use
mine for the pick up the bits job round the edges and I only have it
at all because it came as a freebie with a petrol tool). I use a
petrol powered leaf blower which isn't too heavy and easily blows
everything into a heap where it's easy to bag up for transfer to the
leaf pile.

I've never used one of those push things (though they seem very
expensive for what they are) but I can see two possible problems.
Firstly, the leaf drop season usually corresponds with the lawn being
very wet and I'd want to avoid walking back and forth across it as if
I was cutting it - with the blower I don't have to walk anywhere near
half as much over the grass. Secondly, I'd guess that the open
container type that these leaf sweepers seem to have would be
susceptible to anything more than a miniscule breeze and the leaves
would be blowing out a fair bit as you collected them.

Going a bit OT, with some recent experience, I'd say a blower is much
better than a vac from a wildlife perspective. Whilst blowing around
the other day I uncovered a collection of frogs nestling under the
cover of leaves. I dread to think what might have happened to them had
I been using the vac (which is quite powerful and has sucked up
heavier things than frogs in the past).

Cheers, Jake
==========================================
Proud to be a member of the Taffy Trio
along with Dave and Bill, especially as
the East End, where I'm at, is the drier one