Best Way to Clean Up Leaves in Large Yard

Published February 18, 2021

Johnny Hunt

Gardening Enthusiast

As fall approaches, so does the task of clearing up leaves from your yard. The bigger your yard is, the more work you have. However, for many people, this task can be quite tedious and time-consuming. Nevertheless, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will know the best way to clean up leaves in large yards.

So, to make your task a lot easier and quicker, we will share the solution with you. Outlined below is a step-by-step guide on the best way to clean up leaves in a large yard – so you can spend less time cleaning the outdoors and more time on more important things.

Tools To Get Rid of Leaves

Before you begin the actual leaf clean-up task, you must first figure out which tools you need. You will come across a wide selection of tools. However, you want to pick one that works best for your situation. Alternatively, you can choose to pair two or more tools.

Leaf Rake

A leaf rake is perhaps, the simplest and cheapest tool for cleaning up leaves in a yard. Although a leaf rake is simple to use and extremely affordable, it comes with the downside of being tiresome after using it for a while. Additionally, because a leaf rake is not a power tool, it can take significantly more time to clean up a yard when using it than other tools.

Alternatively, you can choose to use it for particular tasks within the overall leaf cleaning task. To remove the needles of conifers from the yard, you need to use a rake for pine needles.

For example, if you want to rake leaves into a pile or rake them into a plastic tarp for easier discarding, a rake is a perfect tool.

Leaf Blowers

A leaf blower works great when you want to corral leaves into a pile. However, due to its power and size, a portable or handheld leaf blower works particularly well for smaller yards, driveways, sidewalks, or patios. However, you can choose to go for a large, walk-behind gas-powered leaf blower if you have a medium-sized to a large-sized yard.

Power Vacuums

A large, walk-behind power vacuum is an excellent choice of tool for collecting and shredding leaves, even in large yards.

This machinery normally comes with a large capacity bag that you can then remove to dump the leaves in a compost pile.

Furthermore, a power vacuum also a perfect option for reducing the bulky size of leaves. Whilst they are amongst the most convenient power tools for cleaning up leaves in a yard, they are equally expensive.

Lawn Mowers

For large yards, you may want to consider a lawn mower too, if you can afford it. During fall when the leaves fall on the ground, this is also a chance to add more nutrition to the soil – after all, you will have dry and nearly rotting leaves on the ground already. Therefore, you can use this free mulch to make your lawn even healthier.

A lawn mower comes in handy in this situation as you can use it to chop the leaves into smaller pieces.

Shredding the leaves into smaller pieces allows them to settle better in the ground and allow water to penetrate the soil into the plants whilst still providing much-needed nutrition.

Large leaves on the other end would just stick to each other and prevent water from passing through. Combining the small dry leaf bits and green grass clippings creates a decomposing pile that expedites the growth process. Typically, a lawn mower simply cuts the leaves into small pieces and leaves them to scatter around the yard. If you can afford it, you can even go for a mulching mower.

Other Tools

Before clearing up leaves in your yard, other tools you should have include eye/hearing protection to prevent the small bits from getting into your eyes or the noise from the power tools from affecting your hearing, respectively. Additionally, you should also invest in a plastic tarp to easily transfer the collected leaves to a compost pile.

What to Consider Before Cleaning Up Leaves?

After gathering up your tools, you want to think of several factors before cleaning up leaves in your yard. These include the weather. You don’t want to rake in rain! Therefore, if you expect rain in your area, try to rake up the leaves, pile them up in place, and cover them with a tarp before the rain comes. Raking leaves in rain can be a cumbersome task because leaves become heavy and stick to the ground.

Additionally, if there are strong winds on that day, you want to postpone the task too. However, if you absolutely have to rake up your leaves, then, you can choose to rake or blow them in the same direction as the wind is blowing.

What Happens if You Don’t Pick Up Leaves?

If you don’t clean up the leaves in your yard, you don’t only risk making the yard look unkempt. Leaving fallen leaves for prolonged periods can harm the grass on the ground and eventually kill your yard. Therefore, it is essential to clean up leaves in a yard, especially during the fall season when a lot of leaves fall off.

Should I Burn The Leaves?

After collecting leaves, burning them seems like the most logical and simplest method to get rid of them. However, this is not what you should do as you will be polluting the environment.

Burning leaves in large quantities can also pose fire hazardous risks, especially if you are in a windy area.

Furthermore, the smoke generated when you burn leaves can irritate not only your lungs but your neighbors’ as well. In fact, leaf burning is even illegal in some areas. Instead after collecting the leaves, you can add them to a compost pile or use them as mulch for planting beds.