Garden hoover

I was wondering if anybody has any information/recommendations re garden hoovers. I know there are blower types but don't really want 1 of those. I want something like a ordinary house hoover that picks stuff up. I have a huge Cedrus Atlantica Glauca which sheds needles like confetti onto a less than perfectly pointed stretch of crazy paving plus a long driveway which gets littered with "forest litter"! I seem to spend a considerable amount of time sweeping up. Today I got fed up sweeping so decided to give my house hoover a trip to the garden. Well it would have done a great job if it hadn't kept choking . Sure there has to be something which might help. I have historic amounts of leaves in the Autumn to contend with but don't think I'd find a machine to deal with those especially if wet but if only the opening to my Dyson "bucket" was bigger I'd have been sorted. Not sure the Dyson will ever be the same tho as it's a little grubby now...oooopppps!

 

I've had two Black and Decker vacs and blew the motors on both due to trying to pick up wet leaves. Now got a Ryobi (half price in B&Q sale a couple of years ago) and have so far avoided using it on wet leaves! The lesson here is that unless you have an industrial quality vac, don't sook up wet stuff!
The blow facility on many vacs can be quite handy as you can blow leaves into a pile before sucking them up. Also handy for blowing on bonfires to get them started.
A variable power control can be useful too in some circumstances. We have an area covered with bark chips that gets covered with leaves in autumn, if I use full power I tend to suck up bark as well as leaves but by reducing power it's mainly leaves that get lifted.

A garden vac also chops leaves up and makes them much easier to compost and dispose of.
A Dyson isn't quite in the same league and is a tad more expensive to replace -

 

Thanks both JWK and Dave W, you are quite right Dave W my Dyson was acquired because my Mum departed this earth. I think it is a MK1 Dyson ie ancient, however it has well surpassed performance wise the Dyson I already had which is rubbish in comparison. If I can't find what I'm looking for I'll buy another house hoover and use the old Dyson I've already got in the garden and accept it blocks. I might be brave and modify it to suit my needs, this knowing my ability could well result in 1 ruined Dyson!

 

I've got one - forgotten the make, but its orange - might be Flymo. Either way its a beefy machine. I use it on Blow in the Autumn to corral the leaves in a single place to then, more easily, pick-up and plonk in barrow. I think "suck" mode would be useless for leaves, the bag would be full in a trice (although a rotary mower is fine, it chops the leave up which helps them to rot down faster, and then more of the chopped up material fits in the mower's collector.)

Could you use a rotary mower on your pine needles I wonder?

You might find that Blow will work fine on dry Cedar needles - and that picking up a big pile is easier than emptying the bag multiple times, but I expect that most (all?) Garden Hoover makes are both Blow and Suck. Might be worth hiring / borrowing one to see if it does the job before buying one?

 

Thanks Kristen, I've been having a look on the net and Flymo (an orange 1 ) seems to get good reviews and not hellishly expensive. I'm off to a garden centre tomorrow to see 1. I reckon I should be able to tell if it will do the job. Agree re leaves tho, we have mountains of them come Autumn and to be honest it's probably just as easy to rake and barrow. I moan at the time about the leaves but in a year or so I have lovely leaf mold so not all bad!

 

I have one from Aldi that sucks up all my autumn leaves and cedar needles. Minces them all up inside and the bag is then emptied onto the compost pile. It sucks up wet leaves no problem but has on the odd occasion blocked with wet mud from the garden. No problem clearing it, though.

 

You need to modernise that method to "Blow, Pile and Barrow"

 

Are you suggesting that I'm old fashioned and not bang up to date? you absolutely right of course it's a miracle I use 1 of these computer type things as wasn't long ago I was sending smoke signals to our neighbours!!!!

 

Always a handy skill if, oh! I don't know, for example a local Culvert is out of action

 

Oh yoo hoo hoo!!So much for an expert and I deciding the Hostas which were submerged for about 3 months due to the blocked culvert would be goners, never seen them look so well....and here's me thinking I know something about gardening and plants...that will be a no then! You can just see the wee burn at the top of the photo. Been really dry here so it's all but dried up, however it ain't always like this mores the pity. Whether our "smart" new culvert will do the job only time will tell.
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