Instagrammer Uses This Eco-Friendly Option To Rake Leaves Faster

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Autumn is a beautiful time of year with leaves changing to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows and blanketing your grass. But as lovely as they may look, once they drop, you have to decide what to do with them. If you have a significant amount of fallen foliage, it's important to deal with the mess so your lawn doesn't get smothered and damaged. Raking is a classic solution, but it can be time-consuming and hard on your back. Using a leaf blower or mowing your fallen leaves are also popular options,  but these gas-powered machines can be surprisingly damaging to the environment. In fact, some cities have even banned leaf blowers for this reason. If you want to avoid pollution while still clearing your grass quickly, Instagrammer Anya Bumag showed off how she uses a leaf collector to clear her fall lawn. This tool uses brushes to sweep leaves off the lawn and into a collection bag as you push it along on its front wheels.

Leaf collectors, also called leaf sweepers, generally have adjustable brush heights and can pick up leaves, pine needles, and other fall debris. Once full, you can remove the bag and empty it. Conveniently, it's useful even when it isn't autumn, as it also works for collecting grass clippings. The Gardena Lawn and Leaf Collector, which Bumag uses in her video, is one example of this lawncare tool. If you're looking for a similar but lower-cost option, there's also the VEVOR Push Lawn Sweeper, which is available for under $100.

A leaf collector operates somewhat like a lawn mower, but because it's powered by pushing instead of gas, you won't have to worry about a fiddly engine or polluting the air. It's far less noisy than a mower, as well. Just adjust the machine's height so the brushes are low enough to grab foliage, and then make passes back and forth until you've cleaned up most of the fall leaves in your yard. It's not necessary to get every last leaf, though, as a few stragglers won't cause harm to your lawn. 

As amazing as these machines are, they do come with a few drawbacks. They work best only when your yard is dry, or you may not get the results you want. They also sometimes struggle to pick things up on bumpy or uneven lawns, and some Amazon reviewers found both the Gardena and VEVOR collectors challenging to push once they were set low enough to successfully grab the leaves. However, with 50% of the reviewers on Amazon giving five stars, these two options clearly have fans.

Whether you use a leaf collector or a rake, once you've picked up your leaves, you'll have to decide what to do with them. One option, depending on where you live, is to simply take them to the curb for your city or town to collect. Alternatively, you could make another eco-friendly choice and add them to your compost bin or make leaf mold to add to your beds for a healthier spring garden.