leaf plow

[mdb landscaping]

any body out there have a jrco leaf plow for a walk behind. i just purchased one today and the dealer is installing it on my 48 inch scag. any comments on this product?

[beck]

What if i told you it wasnt worth two cents.

You've already bought it. Shouldn't you have asked the question prior to making your purchase. PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY.

I have not personally used one, but a competitor uses one and it seems to do a nice job. I would much rather push the leaves around with the mower than using a tarp.

[Tomslawncare1]

mdb. I've had one for 3 years now. I wonder why the hell I didn't buy it 6 years ago. Once you've used it you'll love it. I used to push with my mower also but said to myself there's got to be a better way. You wont belive how big of a pile you can push with it. I have not seen a tarp in 3 years since I bought it.

[Scotty]

I bought one 3 years ago for the DC. It's a HUGE time and back saver, I would highly recommend the plow to anyone who removes leaves or pushes leaves to other areas on property.

[luckylawnboy]

Ok I don't really under stand why you would really want to push the leaves around all day. I just run over them 3 or 4 for times with my Dixie till there all gone. well small enough to settle in the grass, so what do you do after you have a pile of leaves the size of mount everst.I really hate leaves, so what is the best way to take care of them.

[mdb landscaping]

hey luckylawnboy,
i dont know where you are from, but up here in CT leaves are massive. there is no way you could just run them over with mower. usually the plow is used to move piles that blowers cant move anymore. then you push them to a central location and suck them up with a leaf sucker

[luckylawnboy]

What kind of set up do you use for a leaf sucker. and what is the capacity of leaves able to hold

[mdb landscaping]

i currently dont have a leaf sucker, but i have somebody contracted out to do that for me. i was working with a guy who had a f250 with a box and then a dump trailer 5 by 8 with a box. they were about 8 ft tall. he used a 25 hp honda giant vac leaf loader

[Getmow]

My leaf rig is a 16hp loader mounted on a swinging door on a 12' dump. When the box is on it is 7.5x12x6. I will try the plow this year.

[HOMER]

We have a lot of leaves down here in the south, can't imagine having to plow them! I don't understand why Ct. would have so many more than other parts of the country. Do you collect them once a year or do you do routine maintenance on the lawns? We run over them and what doesn't get mulched gets bagged.


???????????????????????????
I guess you'd have to be there.

Homer

[Scotty]

Hey luckylawnboy, we use the leaf plow to push rows of leaves that the blowers can't blow efficently, because of wetness or windy conditions or the pile is just to big. Like mdb wrote, we push them to the truck loader (18hp Vanguard Billy Goat) which blows them into a 8' x 9' dumping flatbed. When the truck is loaded we dump a local compost center.

Reading other post that speak of mulching leaves and not needing to remove them seems unbelievable to me. Cutting over the leaves until there gone seems like a waste of time, a least with the amount of leaves we deal with in MI.

[little green guy]

here in New Jersey we get a TON if leaves, I couldn't even imagine mulching leaves. We usually don't get very far before our blowers can't handle anymore blowing then we start pushing the leaves with the mower. I don't think you guys down south realize how many leaves the are up here, (i'm not totally sure of what you guys have but I know we a got a serios amount up here) Good luck to all.

[pete]

It seems like half of the lawns i do have virtual forests in the backyard 30" gates and are up hill to the street. I have thought about building/getting a leaf plow but i cant see where it would be all that helpfull. Seems like i still have to tarp the backyards. the fronts i can usualy fire up the little wonder and push it across the yard once or twice and the all the leaves are in the yard across the street. Are these things worth the money? I havent seen one down here in the dc area, and im usualy always checking other peoples equipment.

[Eric ELM]

Have you tried mulching them? I have customers that said there is no way you can mulch that many leaves, but I did and they could not believe it. 1.5 acres used to take as many as 33 loads of 22 bushels of leaves, finely chopped each week. As far as I'm concerned, that is a lot of leaves, but I can mulch them and make them disappear and the lawn looks as healthy in the summer as any. It is a lot easier, faster and I've done this now since 1994. Before that I picked them up, but no more. My lawn vac is now in retirement forever. :)

[lawrence stone]

Lawrence Stone: leaf grinder and man about town since 1991.

[Scraper]

Little Green Guy...no offense, but I think most anywhere there are leaves. Maybe not the deep south where most are evergreen, but leaves are leaves. No matter where you go. Here in Philly suburbs I can get away with mulching them and Stone up in Coal country does the same. I think we have the same kind of trees you do...unless it's all those chemicals in the groundwater in jersey contrivbuting to major amounts of leaves. :)

[Henry]

ELM, how about posting a before and after picture of a lawn after mulching 6"-8" of sycamoreleaves. Also what do you mulching guys do about all the acorns from the oaks?

[Runner]

The acorns, walnut shells, and such, we blow into piles and rake them onto tarps. This year though, I'm going to try bagging them with a Lazer and sidebag. I hopoe if I,m cutting down low enough, for the final cut, I'll have enough vacuum to do this. Can anyone please tell me if this works?

[geogunn]

I don't see how you can effectively blow acorns and such through grass such that you do an effective job of clearing the yard.

leaves yes. acorns?

GEO

[HOMER]

I don't know how many have ever used one of these things but they work really good for the fine stuff. I bought a leaf sweeper from Lowes a few years ago, its no good for leaves because they blow around too much but if you mulch them first it is very effective in picking up the remnants. I know it picks up acorns, hickory nuts, pecans, and virtually anything the brushes run over. This was my answer to leaves before I spent the big money on a bagging unit. It pins to the back of your mower and you pull it around. I used mine the other day to pick up piecones at one of my schools, big time saver and back saver. With this you can back up to your tarp, pull the rope, dump it and go after another load. Mine is an Agri-Fab, 38". I know they make them bigger, Sears sells them too i think.

They work,

Homer

[lawrence stone]

Henry (not a ture believer)wrote:

>ELM, how about posting a before and after picture of a lawn after mulching 6"-8" of sycamoreleaves. Also what do you mulching guys do about all the acorns from the oaks

I will post some before and after pics tommorrow night.

We can have a contest to see who has the best grinder.

[stick9]

I can't believe what I'm reading!! Where I come from (Detroit), we have SOOOOOOOOOOO many leaves .. you can't even see the lawn. It's buried like 6-8 inches deep. I cannot believe that you people mulch that many leaves. It would look AWEFUL!! By pushing and then sucking the HUGE piles, the riddance of all the bits and pieces is quite evident. I can't imagine all those leaves disappearing into the lawn. Somehow, the logic just doesn't fit. oh well. Maybe our standards are just higher then others. Maybe some of you don't really understand how many leaves there are. I don't know. Our customers would NEVER go for mulching up the leaves. wow.

For the rest of us, the JRCO leaf plow is a FANTASTIC investment. Superbly designed, strong, and VERY effecient. Can't imagine a Fall without one.

stiCK-NINe

[Evan528]

thank you stick9! you took the words right out of my mouth!

[Highpoint]

First time jitters, I made a mistake and sent my reply to the main heading thread under commercial lawncare forum. I'll pay more attention next time.

[Eric ELM]

I just happened to take some today Larry. The first one is the first pass. You can see what I'm mulching and how it looks after the first time and then I go over it real fast a second time, which is the bottom picture. It may not be perfect, but I don't think it looks horrible and I've never had any complaints. When they get a bit deeper, I'll get some more pictures. It sure beats picking them up.

http://elms.bizland.com/before.jpg

http://elms.bizland.com/after.jpg

[Eric ELM]

I've gotten email asking me to post a before and after picture and also on this thread Henry said I should post pictures. There they are. Does this look awful? If you were one of my customers, would you complain? Is your way of doing this 100% better, 1000% better? Please let me know all of you that have doubted me. If there is a better way, please let me know. Thanks.

[bob]

Looks good Eric. Theres not much left. At least not enough to complain about!

[Runner]

That's about what my Lazer is doind too, and I'm up here in Michigan also. Yes, we do get ALOT of leaves up here, (some of my larger estates are like forests) but it CAN be done. The flakes that do get left behind decompose much more rapidly than whole leaves, so what may look "bad" doesn't really look like that by the next week. Also, Geo, the acorn and walnut shells blow quite easy with a Little Wonder and/or backpacks. We don't blow them across the yard, we just gather them around where they fall. Unless the whole yard is filled. As I said before, we pick these up last, so by this time the grass is already cut down low.:)

[stick9]

Oh my. I understand now.

stick-nINe

[MOW ED]

Leafs are not all the same. What a revelation. It really depends on the moisture content of the leafs when you hit them. If they have fallen and have laid around for a week in the dry weather they will turn to dust real quick. Some leaves have big stems that dont seem to shread up too well. The leafs that really aggervate me aren't leafs at all but whirlybirds from the maples. I have customers with lots of pine trees and we all know how acidic the pine needles are.

I have the luxury of vacuuming everything up with my Walker and I mean everything. When I'm done the lawn looks perfect. On most lawn I just dump everything at the curb and the city sucks them up. The ones that I take away pay very well for the service. It is a personal perference as well as an area thing - give the people what they want and they give you what you want-- $$$.