TIDY YOUR LEAF LITTER

Your pathways, driveways and garden beds look much more finished off when you have given them a once over with your blower to remove leaves and other debris from your day in the garden. Leaf blowers make this job quick and easy, and with the excellent battery options now available, this job no longer has to annoy the neighbours either. In fact, they will be in wonder at how neat and tidy your garden is!

How to avoid ‘blow-back’

Enjoy quick and easy gathering of leaves without the blow-back! Simply hold the blower at a shallow angle of around 20-30° to ground horizontal. Blow in the same direction as the wind, or along the side of the wall. This method also stops the leaves from scattering everywhere while being gathered.

Creating rich nutrition from your leaves

Once you’ve gathered your leaves, create a fantastic compost with them using this tip. Simply place the leaves into a black plastic bag, add water and leave for 6 months. The resulting Leaf Mould is highly nutritious for your garden!

WATCH CHARLIE’S ‘TIP CLIP’
‘Easy breezy Spring garden tidying’

Using a blower is not as simple as point and shoot. Watch as Charlie, using the STIHL BGA 57 Battery Blower, shares tips on how to get the most out of your blower, as well as how to create his ‘garden gold’ leaf mould for use across your garden beds, as a boost for compost and as mulch around roses.
 

Charlie’s tips for blowing leaves

1. Before operating your blower, always make sure you are a minimum safety distance of 5m from any other person standing in the direction of the blower airstream.
2. Before you start, decide where you want to move all the leaves to for collection. This can be into a pile for easy collection, or onto your lawn before collecting them up with your lawn mower. Just make sure you’ve removed any sticks or larger twigs beforehand!
3. To avoid blow back (when the leaves go everywhere!) keep the nozzle at a shallow angle, and blow with the wind and along walls.
4. To maintain control, use varying speeds or short sharp burst to direct the debris to where you want it to go.
5. Hard surfaces require a slower speed as leaves are easier to move.
6. If you’re blowing leaves off the grass, a higher air speed will be required.
7. For quick removal of wet leaves, switch to the flat nozzle (if your blower has one) which is especially designed for this purpose.
8. Save those leaves! Harness the goodness from the leaves; pop them straight into your compost heap or work them directly into your beds to help nourish the soil.

Charlie’s top picks for battery blowers

• For small yards and courtyards, the BGA 45 is a great value-packed battery blower, clearing up to 200m2 or just under a tennis court-sized area of leaves on a single charge.
• If you’re after something a little more robust to cover a larger area, the BGA 57 battery blower is the next step up. It’s packed full of comfort features and when it comes to runtime, it is more than capable of clearing up to three tennis courts worth of leaves in a single charge!

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