My 11 Favorite Tools for Fall Yard Cleanup
Forget spring cleaning: If you’re a gardener, you know that the real cleaning happens in the fall. This is when you’re busy trimming trees, cutting down annuals, trimming everything in sight, and getting everything in order before the rain and snow come.
While there are a variety of gardening tools that I use year-round , there are a few specific tools I use in the fall that help get the cleaning job done. Here are 11 of them that will also find a place in your tool shed or garage.
Electric hand pruner
I’m not that old, but a full day of pruning, especially pruning hardwood, gives me arm cramps. That’s why these new hand pruners are so fantastic. You’d think they wouldn’t be as fast as manual ones, but they do a great job and cut through everything from hydrangeas to fruit trees like butter.
Tree branch angle
If you have a tree, say a fruit tree, whose branches need to be more horizontal to the ground than vertical (to make it easier to pick the fruit), tilt rods are the real trick. You bend the young branches into shape and this trains them to grow away from the tree rather than upward. I’ve had great success using them: my plum tree now has many more branches that are close to the ground to make them easier to harvest.
Electric saw
I’m a girl who loves a good power saw. My Ryobi chainsaw is near and dear to my heart, but my electric saw is pure magic. This means that I, a five-foot tall person, can trim tree branches that are 20 feet above me. You can extend the saw up and down to make it as tall as you need it to be, and it’s a hefty mechanism. He lives in the barn most of the year, waiting for the weather to change and the trees to be ready for pruning. Removing scruff on lower branches and shaping higher branches was a pleasure thanks to this tool.
Pop-up collections
Even though I like to ” leave the leaves ” because they make damn good compost and mulch, there is still a lot more cleanup to do in the fall, including weeds, wilted plants, dead stems, sunflowers, and other debris. Pop-up containers are ideal for this. Use them when you need them, then fold them up and put them away. They’re very lightweight yet surprisingly durable, making them easy to carry around even when packed to the brim.
The right rake for the right job
After years of trying to find the perfect rake, I now realize that it doesn’t exist. Or more than one: different rakes are needed for different purposes. Invest in a soft plastic rake for leaves, driveways, sidewalks and other hard surfaces. Choose a stiff rake for dirt, compost and rocks. These are my favorite two rakes, but your rake needs may vary.
This giant yard duster
When people see this huge dustpan in my yard, they tend to laugh—until they see it in action. Forget about trying to pull leaves and weeds between a rake and a gloved hand. Just scoop them up and throw them away. This dustpan also allows you to sweep up wood chips and other debris from your walkway; Last year I found it to be so flexible that I could even use it to shovel ice out of my driveway. My dustpan is always floating around the yard during cleaning season because I use it almost every day.
Damn good car
Moving mulch and compost requires more than buckets—you need a wheelbarrow to be able to move and unload a decent amount of material without tiring yourself out. While there are newer models that drive more like vans, and even electric ones , you simply can’t beat the flexibility of a standard one-wheeler. These things can flip over in an instant and get into tight spaces. Every yard needs one.
Really good loppers
Electric hand pruners have become popular in recent years, and while I’m a fan of them (mostly because of the hand cramps that result from handling my hand pruners), none of these new electric tools can replace my loppers. These long-handled pruners are ideal for trimming branches, vines and plants that are too large for hand pruners. Long handles not only extend the range of action, but also provide more leverage for cutting thick stems and branches. I especially like this Fiskars model – the handles are comfortable and do not fall apart in the sun.
Lawn vacuum cleaner
As I said above, I’m all for keeping your leaves. After all, why give out free mulch and compost? Not to mention, leaving them gives the creatures that live in the leaves a safe place to overwinter. But if you insist on getting rid of the leaves, the most effective way I’ve found is to use a vacuum cleaner. Some leaf blowers now come with vacuums that allow you to suck up leaves and mulch them. Then all you have to do is empty the bag you were carrying on your shoulder. It’s very nice and you end up with real mulch that you can throw in a green bin for kerbside collection, compost, or put back in your yard.
Electric washing machine
It seems like everyone has an electric sprayer these days, and I always see them spraying their driveways, house fronts, and fences. The problem is that they do it in the spring or summer – a bad move in my humble opinion. At this point it gets warm and you spray microbes from the soil onto the plants. If you do this in the fall, whatever you pick out of the soil probably won’t survive the winter freeze. So spray yourself, including trellises and other garden tools, but do it in cold weather. I waited until the temperatures dropped to use this Giraffe Tools retractable model (I’m a big fan of their retractable hoses).
Treatment of slugs
Slugs live in the summer, but in the fall and winter they seem to me especially merciless and endlessly annoying. I have tried every possible solution to avoid using a treatment like Sluggo , but there is simply no more effective option. All my beds are treated in the fall and I repeat this after every rainfall.
Another solution to control slugs is to use copper tape (and copper nails to secure it) around all the beds. Slugs will not pass through copper and the resulting appearance can be quite beautiful.