What is the point of leaf blowers?

[GodneySaysWorkBitch]

They're just there to make a noise, right?

I hate them BUT there are moments when I would love one, to blow leaves that won’t rot well out of tangles of other plants without disturbing them so much. It’d be so much quicker to blow then rake.

They allow you to blow leaves off a large area very quickly.

Raking takes a very long time and can damage the surface underneath.

Noisy but practical

I don't really understand them either. Surely they just redistribute leaves all over the garden?
Perhaps a leaf sucker would be better…

Wet leaves on paths can be very slippy like standing on a banana peel. I have near broke my neck a few times in Autumn.

They allow you to blow the leaves off your property and onto someone else's, thus saving you having to either pick them up and dispose of them, or live with rotting leaves.

And you can annoy anyone trying to have a conversation nearby into the bargain.

To blow them all into one place and scoop them all up into a bag?

I have the opposite a garden hoover I suppose, it sucks them up in to a big bag and straight in the compost bin, that makes much more sense to me.

They're often both. No good for sucking leaves off certain surfaces (gravel for example) but handy for small amounts of leaves. Blowing is better for heavy leaf fall and you only need to get them in a good pile to pick up.

We found ours worth its weight in gold when we had a gravel driveway covered by two 30+ sycamore trees. One year we neglected our leaf blowing and had to sort a whole new drive the following year because the leaves built up, rotted and the whole place became a mud pit.

I'm sure they exist to keep a certain type of person busy, there's public green where I live with lots of houses facing on to it. Two men who live opposite each other spend all autumn blowing leaves backwards and forwards towards each other's properties

😂

I thought they were to blow leaves off pavements to the edge or onto green areas. Leaves can make pavements slippy when they start to go mulchy. You’re right though, a broom would do the job just as well so no need for a blower. Would love to see the leaf blowing neighbours at war. 😁

Noisy but an incredible time saver if you have a large garden.

I've always been baffled too. You blow the leaf from one place to another. Surely the next big gust of wind just blows it right back again?

I don’t get them either

You use the leaf blower to get the leaves into a big pile - much quicker and easier than using a broom, then you get the kids to see how fast they can fill the wheelie bin with them, you put the smallest child in the wheelie bin to jump up and down on the leaves so you can get more in. Meanwhile you supervise whilst sitting on the garden wall with a coffee. It's a brilliant October half term holiday activity.

Where I work they have two massive beech trees either side of the drive - the number of leaves is phenomenal and they get everywhere. Leaf blowing is an easy way to sort it out and weirdly satisfying too!

I agree they just blow the leaves out of control everywhere and the wet sticky ones or in the grass still need to be removed manually.
Unless you have a huge area it's useful but otherwise no.

They are another ingenious way mankind has invented to consume resources in order to deal with a non-issue "inconvenience" arising from the natural world.

I've got two. They are really useful and fun to use. I couldn't take up all the leaves - it would do my back in and take ages.

I always thought their sole purpose was to blow the leaves onto someone else's property, or down the road

That's what they are used for round here and tbh I think it is highly selfish!

Solve problems on Taskmaster.

Ours blows and sucks and chops so they can go straight into compost.
It never gets used because it's louder than a passenger jet.

Hi all, please forgive the negative post but I'm passionate about spreading word that petrol leaf blowers are utterly toxic for our kids' health!

2-stroke leaf blowers, which are so prevalent in this country (but banned in other parts of the world), are 300x more polluting than cars for ozone-causing pollution which permanently deforms the growing lungs, brains and eyes of even healthy children. The 2-stroke engine of most leaf blowers has been banned for every other use except lawn and road maintenance. About 30% of the fuel (gasoline / oil mix) goes out the exhaust and becomes an aerosol for us to breath. Many gasoline components are carcinogens (e.g., benzene, butadiene, formaldehyde).

Even a newer 2017 4-stroke petrol leaf blower emits 50x more brain-damaging particulate pollutants than an all the engines at a busy junction of cars at rush hour.

What's more, the power of these leaf-blowers pulverizes whatever they hit into very fine dust - fertilizer, pesticide residue, moulds, animal excrement, dust from brake linings, asbestos, grease, oil, carcinogenic carbon black from tire wear - which leaf blowers then disperse widely into the air. Much of this dust is so fine (less than 10 microns), it gets past the protective cilia in our airways and passes into our lungs & bloodstream. And the dust stays airborne for days..

For these, & a whole host of other reasons, I'm calling for a national ban. There are so many non-lethal alternatives: battery-operated leaf blowers, rakes, brooms, etc... Please sign & share if you care! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/618978

There’s a complete twat by us who blows all the leaves into the road. Makes the road lethal in the wet, for motor bikers especially.

(He may have stopped doing it now after DH pulled up to advise him of the error of his ways).

Legally of course it’s fly tipping.