Autumn Leaves: Leaf Collection

It’s Autumn, the time of year when it can become a bit more challenging to care for your lawn. Temperatures start to drop again along with the autumn leaves which fall from the trees. The team at Allett have put together a few tips to help you maintain a healthy lawn this autumn.

Why are fallen leaves bad for your lawn?

In short fallen leaves prevent sunlight from reaching your grass. They smother the grass, preventing water from evaporating and eliminating air exchange. The combination of wet plants and low oxygen causes the grass to rot. This may cause fungal problems and grass death, resulting in a patchy or dead lawn the following spring. It can also promote snow mould diseases.

Leaf Collection

You are likely to be kept busy picking up leaves during the autumn time if you have trees in or near your garden. Fallen leaves are everywhere this time of year, and they're not exactly the easiest to gather and collect. That is why a variety of leaf collection equipment is required when collecting leaves in and around your property from various types of terrain. There is a range of tools available when it comes to collecting leaves from your lawn. The cheapest tool available is a handheld garden rake. A flat, tined plastic or rubber rake is best for collecting leaves from grassy areas and are generally inexpensive to buy. While these are suitable for almost all gardens, owners of larger lawns with a large quantity of leaf litter may find a handheld rake too physically demanding to use. An alternative is a grabber - a grabber is like a litter picker, but with a larger picking area allowing you to collect leaves without it being as physically demanding. However, there are also other options available for people who prefer or require something which doesn’t require as much manual labour. For example, the team at Allett have developed cartridges which our customers can use with their Allett Mowers to help minimise the effort needed to gather any leaves off your lawn. These cartridges are the Allett brush and scarifier cartridge. The added bonus of the cartridges is that the leaves are collected in the grassbox so you don't have to pick them all up!

Allett Lawn Brush

The lawn brush cartridge from Allett can be used to gather a variety of light garden debris such as leaves, twigs and grass clippings efficiently.

Allett Scarifier

The Allett scarifier cartridge is one of our most popular cartridges and will give you as powerful a level of leaf collection capabilities (even more so than the Allett lawn brush). However, the scarifier will also provide you with the ability to penetrate the surface of the soil allowing important nutrients, air and water to move through the soil and enter the roots of the plant. If you have not been scarifying throughout the season you should be setting a-side a day to get it done now! Remember though- you must seriously think about scarifying once a month with the scarifier cartridge during the mowing season- little and often is the way! Read our scarifying blog here Find a video on leaf collection with the Allett Kensington and Scarifer cartridge here.... For more tips on how to care for your lawn this autumn, take a look at our lawncare calendar.