G’day Folks
Bit of a story.
Our place is quite hilly and has a number of oak trees on the north side. The house is positioned below these oaks with lawn areas in between. I generally mow this area with my Deutcher self-propelled and leave grass clippings to mulch into the lawn. However, the bulk of the leaves need to be removed during autumn because otherwise drainages get blocked and the house and garden would fill with them.
I’ve been mowing up fallen leaves using my trusty Victa 2-stroke mower for a good few years.
This was great for helping the waste break down as it chopped the leaves and mixed them with cut grass. However, every year I felt a bit daunted by the task in autumn. Aside from the massive amount of leaf material, the catcher just doesn’t have enough volume and I end up carting multiple catcher loads to the trailer after short mower runs. For the two months period at the back end of autumn I would easily fill this box trailer twice during each weekly mow sometimes three times. This material isn’t wasted, I use it as mulch on the hillside below the house, however the process has been very labour intensive.
I’ve been a bit crook and last year I wasn’t up to the job so we had some help come in. There were two blokes with Honda self-propelled hru216 mowers and big catchers, who mowed every week, they made the job look a bit easier. They certainly didn’t have to empty their catchers as often. I’m hoping I’ll be well enough to do a bit more myself this year so I’m looking for a better solution than my trusty Victa.
I have considered one of those rear chute type type arrangements for ride-on mowers but there’s a lot of trees, the access is very difficult and the hillside is too steep. A couple of years ago I tried my then brand new greenfield up there and it was unsafe. We had a couple of slips and slides, ending up going clean through a shrub and coming to a halt against a large rock. Needless to say I haven’t taken it up there since.
What I’m now thinking of is a larger sized walk behind leaf vacuum. I’ve never used one but my local mower bloke has a catalogue for these billy goat machines. They are not cheap and I worry a bit about seasonally used 4 stroke machines, especially with hilly terrain and no forced lubrication.
I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with this type of thing and could steer me in a helpful direction?
Cheers
Ironbark
