How to Get Rid of Pine Needles

Published July 20, 2021

Johnny Hunt

Gardening Enthusiast

Struggling with how to get rid of pine needles in your yard? This guide is for you. There’s no doubt that pine trees bring vast benefits to any home. The trees function as shade trees, windbreakers, privacy screens, and even act as natural air fresheners. Nonetheless, pine trees come with one pet peeve – pine needles.

During the late summer to late fall seasons (sometimes early winter), pine needles are at their peak shedding. This, in turn, means you will be having a messy yard filled with pine needle clutter. Therefore, learning the easiest way to remove pine needles from your yard and garden goes a long way. Below, I’ve shared a short, but, detailed guide on how to easily do so.

Pine Needle Removal Steps

There are plenty of ways to get rid of pine needles. Typically, a regular rake or mower will not effectively remove pine needles from your yard. However, you can find a selection of other tools for pine needle removal.

Specialized Rake

A regular rake is not the best choice when thinking of how to get rid of pine needles on grass. However, you will be successful in pine needle removal using a specialized rake for pine needles. Regular rakes have tine placement designs which make it easy for the pines to cling or penetrate through it.

However, a rake designed for pine needles accommodates their design and is, therefore, more effective. Generally, these rakes feature thin, springy metal tines that are much closer together. Due to this design, specialized rakes can collect pine needles in a single scoop.

Lawn Sweeper

A lawn sweeper is the simplest tool to use to remove pine needles from your yard. Whilst a lawn sweeper is cheap, it can be quite time-consuming. Nonetheless, it allows you to clear off pine needles, cones, and dead leaves.

A lawn sweeper is designed with a rotating bristle that sweeps off the debris and collects it into a specific area. You can use a lawn sweeper independently by pushing or towing it. Alternatively, you can attach it to a riding lawnmower.

Leaf Blower

If you want to use a power tool to clear your yard, a leaf blower is an excellent choice. In fact, this tool is primarily designed for such tasks. Simply blow the pine needles into a tarp to keep your yard or garden clean. A leaf blower eliminates the possibility of pine needles clinging to its parts or crevices or roots in your lawn.

However, to be able to tackle the rather denser pine needles, you need a heavy-duty leaf blower. This is because a regular blower is only capacitated to handle lighter leaves. Typically, you want a leaf blower with at least a velocity of 250 to 300 mph.

Lawn Vacuum

If you can’t access a leaf blower, a lawn vacuum will do. Unlike a leaf blower, a lawn vacuum doesn’t require you to set up a tarp to collect the pine needles. Instead, it comes with a fitted bag where you can collect the pine needles.

Using a lawn vacuum, clean up is much more efficient as you can vacuum and collect the pine needles in the bag included as you go. Furthermore, just like an indoor vacuum, a lawn vacuum allows you to access tight comers, drains, and gutters.

Power Washing

If you want a more radical option, power washing is the way to go.

This method is especially useful for cleaning up scores of pine needles. However, power washing works best on surfaces such as decks, patios, and other paved surfaces. You don’t need to use this method in your plant garden or unpaved yard.

The best part about power washing is that it will also leave the surface spotlessly clean.

Furthermore, unlike other options, power washing removes the needles as well as the sticky sap that oozes from the pine cones and needles. If you choose to use this method, be mindful of the pressure settings. Set them as if you were regularly cleaning your home. For example, if your deck is made of wood, set the medium level to prevent it from damaging the wood.

Duct Tape

As crazy as this may sound, you can actually use duct tape to get rid of pine needles. However, the downside to this method is that it is time-consuming and laborious. Nevertheless, it is a viable option if you haven’t any other equipment option.

Just like you imagine it, you will have to crawl across your yard or garden with a roll of duct tape to pick up the pine needles.

This method is much more practical if there’s very few pine needles son your garden or yard – especially if they are hidden in between rocks or crevices.

If kneeling is too much for you, you can use duct tape on a broom.

To do so, wrap duct tape around the end of the broom with the adhesive part facing outwards. You can even use rubber bands to hold the tape in place. But, in the list of creative and improvise tools to use for getting rid of pine needles, duct tape is not the only option. You can even use a lint roller or paint roller which works similarly to a lint roller.

Conclusion

Figuring out how to get rid of pine needles makes the task appear difficult and cumbersome. But nothing can be further from the truth. After all, you are exposed to a vast range of methods to do so. Plus, getting rid of pine needles brings numerous benefits to your yard and garden including promoting adequate air and sunlight for the grass, and retention of soil moisture. Additionally, the removal of pine needles and cones prevents the acid in them from leeching your grounds and inviting an even bigger problem – weeds!