Save Your Back and the Environment With a Lawn Sweeper

I'm not sure if anyone hates raking leaves as much as I do. As a youngster, my autumn job was clearing all the leaves out of the fence between our yard and the neighbors. It was a great injustice since only about 5% of the leaves (from my estimate) actually came from our trees. So as I was spending the weekend raking and bagging leaves, my friends were out having fun and enjoying autumn.

As I got older, I realized I stilled hated raking leaves, not to mention the strain it put in my back. Bending over to shove the leaves into a lawn bag would surely make my back sore all week. Then a few years ago I discovered the amazing power of a lawn sweeper! If you haven't seen one of these things and hate raking leaves, you might want to think about getting one.

There are two major types of yard sweepers, push and tow behind lawn sweepers. The push sweeper is as it would seem, manual; you push it much like you would a push lawn mower. As it moves across your lawn, the axle spins brushes that sweep up leaves, sticks, and debris into a hopper. Generally the hopper is made of canvas and holds from several cubic feet up to over 16 cubic feet (depending on the size of sweeper).

However, if you're lucky enough (or unlucky to have a huge yard) but have a lawn mower or ATV, you have the option of a tow behind yard sweeper. These, as would be expected, are towed behind a tractor or other powered garden tool. What's so amazing about some of the tow behind sweepers is that you don't even have to get off your mower to dump the hamper.

Obviously the tow behind sweepers is more expensive but can still be found fairly reasonable under $300. If you have a big yard, a large sweeper can save you hours in raking leaves; not to mention your back muscles! Even if you choose the push lawn sweeper, you're still going to save a ton of time and energy. One great by-product of the push lawn sweeper is the non-effect it has on the environment. Unlike the pollutants that leave blowers produce, a push lawn sweeper is manually powered and thus has no carbon emissions. Believe it or not, some municipalities have even banned leave blowers due to their noise; which is another benefit of the quiet lawn sweeper.