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Best method for one man leaf removal in a large yard

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macgyer58

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
I have about 2 acres of property. Pretty heavily treed around the edges and about 8 huge oaks over the 1 1/2 acres of grass area. I just got a ZTR to mow the lawn and I'm trying to figure out the best way to get rid of the leaves. In other words, what method will allow me ( one person with no helpers) to get the leaves off the lawn in the least amount of time. The two options I'm looking at are...

1) Buy a backpack leaf blower and a wheeled blower ( could use advice on what horsepower to get 5hp, 15hp, or somewhere in between), and blow them into the surrounding wooded areas.

2) Get a cyclone rake to attach to the ZTR. I'll still need to purchase a backpack blower or the optional 17 foot hose to get leaves from the planting beds.

Forgetting the cost of the system, does anyone have any comments on these two options in terms of time involved and any other advantages or disadvantages. Anyone had any experience with both? Thanks
 
#2 ·
to save the most time go with a cyclone rake, get the model that meets your needs. get a back pack blower, instead of the 17ft, or estate house (there're heavy and somewhat hard to manuever), save yourself some time blow em out of the beds and suck them up with the cyclone, just my opinion of what i do with my cyclone.

-John
 
#3 ·
try a leaf plow on the front of your ztr then a trac vac/cyclone rake for the back of the mower, or ether or. wb blowers and bb blowers as well.
 
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#4 ·
I bet the blowers will be fastest. Blow 95% of the leaves into the woods, then go over the lawn with the mower to suck up the last few leaves.

If you do it weekly or so, you can run the blowers for 10 or 15 minutes, then just mow the lawn as usual, in the usual amount of time.

An 8 or 9HP walk-behind blower will be fine, and will fire the leaves a good 20 feet into the woods, and disperse them nicely. I'd suggest a huge backpack, like a BR600.

The thing with a cyclone rake is that you will develop big piles of leaves wherever you dump. And I'm not sure that you will use it for anything else all year, where a backpack will be used all year.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
It sounds to me like either setup will work and maybe its just a matter of personal preference. I was hoping to try out the leaf blowers a few times and see how much of an effort it is with that first. The problem is that there are places to rent the wheeled blowers but no one seems to rent the back packs naround here.

Thanks for the input. I'd be happy to hear from anyone else who has an oppinion.
 
#6 ·
backpacks are worth every penny, we have 2 packs gonna pick up another, 3 blowers, 9, 11, 14 hp, just bought a leaf plow for the ztr, have a olathe lawn sweeper, collection system on the zero, tarps rakes, 37hp giant vac. hopefully have the solution to any leaf problem that we come across.
 
#7 ·
My advise, find some help! We do a few larger accounts and even with 3 or 4 guys its quite a job. We use 3 big back pack blowers, a 10hp and a 9hp w/b blower, a walk behind mower for a bulldozer, a z turn as a bulldozer and our leaf loader and I bet you were there 11hrs.
 
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#8 ·
I did my moms back yard and alittle of neighbors yard just to test out my brothers echo 775t and seems to take me longer then i wanted/ figured.. And there are a crap load of leafs next to the building now.. But i will soon have my leaf blower same model and hope me and him will be able to take out some leafs in decent time using 2 rakes/ 1 big tarp/ 2 shovels/ and two backpack blowers..
 
#9 ·
Blowers IMO.
 
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#11 ·
Picasso said:
how about a bagger on the ztr and a bp blower for the beds??
Click to expand...
This would be a decent start. I would also add to try running the leaves over with the mower a couple times and shred them up as much as possible. I know in super heavy conditions its not the best solution but after doing it on several sites last season, it did make a good difference!
 
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#12 ·
I use a backpack and rake if need be, to get them all out of the beds and onto the lawn. Now, before this year, I would destroy them with my mower ( meg-mow blades with chute blocker). Not bad results but when it got real bad, I had to tarp them. This year invested in a 3 bagger for the scag thinking it would be much faster. The answer is yes and no. Cleans up everything in one pass but then you need somewhere to dump (truck) and then re dump out of the truck when I get home into the compost piles.
I think the only way to move leaves at a really fast pace is to hire someone.JMO
I move a pretty good clip myself with my set up and it seems to work for me. good luck
 
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#13 ·
I have a similar lawn setup. I went through the entire learning process before getting to the state I'm in now, which works very well. I own a Little Wonder blower. It works good for many tasks. It's a b@ll buster for herding leaves over larger distances and you're limited to when you can use it depending on the wind. Not to mention, it does nothing to chop up the leaves so they are free to blow back over time. I can blow them back into the woods and down the hill but the winds are relentless and do their work over time.

So I bought a DR leaf and lawn vacuum. What an awesome tool. I tow that behind my tractor and can do an acre in less than an hour (probably 30 oaks and a handful of maples). I have to dump 2-3 times and they are chopped up into a fine pile. They never blow back.

For beds, I bought the hose extension. Have you lifted one of those? It's a back breaker. Forget it, this works better- disconnect the hose from the mow deck and lay it down on the ground. Rake the leaves toward the hose and they get sucked up very easily. I have a 300' stone wall and numerous beds. This is the easiest solution I have found next to writing a check.

My advice- look at the DR products compared to the Cyclone Rake. I think you'll see a big difference in quality and capacity.
 
#14 ·
Depending on how the trees are spaced, an easy solution might be to use a wheel blower and blow the majority on to a very large tarp......use the mower to drag the tarp close to the woods...repeat till you get the majority done. Use the mower and a vac system to suck up the remaining leaves, then quickly use the blower to blow them into the woods.

Using a blower over any real distance with any decent amount of leaves is counter productive. You're good for about 150-200 ft then the pile becomes too large--even for the bigger blowers. A large tarp (I don't mean a 5 x 10 tarp) can hold a ton of leaves and the mower can drag it a real distance without too much effort--and really quickly.

I only have the walk behind mower with the single trashcan trac vac system mounted on it--and it works great for a couple inches of leaves. Thicker than that, I haven't found anything quicker than a large tarp. The only issue is wet leaves which become too heavy to drag a large load. I've done pre- mulching and then pick them up, just plain tarping, blowing and tarping, trac vac alone and the issue is always the same---you gotta move a huge volume and a tarp seems to be the trick for long distances....you move more volume per cycle. I always wanted to build a hover tarp to reduce the tarp to ground friction... someday when I get a few months of time........sure!
 
#16 ·
what i would do for that is use my ferris walkbehind with side discharge and go to the middle of the property and discharge/ shoot the leaves out.. aiming them towards the woods.. i would continue in a circle and shoot the leaves out until all of them are on the outsides of the lawn
 
#17 ·
buy a backpack blower and dont go cheap. buy a tarp and a rake. blow the leaves into large piles, you will get to a point when you are only moving the piles a few inches at a time. when you get to this point start blowing from the other side to form piles. rake the piles onto the tarp, dont overload to where you are killing yourself dragging the tarp, no method is faster
 
#20 ·
maybe it took him 4 years to get a good system down. lol
 
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CorkyE
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