What is your favorite leaf mulcher/shredder?

[aquarose]

I need to mulch the leaves of four large oak trees every fall. This is a tree-mendous job. I HATE bagging the leaves and putting them on the curb, but you can't compost or mulch with oak leaves unless they are shredded. Can anyone recommend a good shredder/mulcher?

 

[aquarose]

Nobody has a great leaf shredder?

 

[silkiechicken]

I don't... I wish I had a huge wood chipper though! Leaves just fall to the ground and rot here. We don't have grass and most the trees are evergreens.

 

[Reinbeau]

I always wanted a Kemp shredder, but by the time I could think about affording one they went out of business. They had the best 'hammers' and shredded all of the garden stuff without clogging up too much - most of what's out there today are geared more towards chipping than shredding. The MacKissic Mighty Mac is sorta what I would go for now.

 

[nccountrygirl]

We have on on our blower/ leaf vacuum BUT we have way to many acorns in the fall to use it.

 

[Southern Gardener]

I also have a blower/vacuum and it works great for me.

 

[1acrefarm]

My electric blower vacuum works great. I like the least effort methods so I will be trying my bagger mower.

 

[Jillylam]

I don't have a shredder but here's what I do. I herd the leaves into big piles with my Dixie Chopper (mower) and then mow them up with my small mulching mower - which has a bag. Then I just dump it all right into the gardens.

 

[patandchickens]

What Jillylam said.

Alternatively, if you have a stringtrimmer and a *metal* trash can, and a really effective set of earplugs, you can dump some leaves in the can (not too many at a time), lower the string trimmer in and blenderize them. Lather rinse repeat til done. The lawnmower approach is easier, the stringtrimmer-in-a-can is more thorough.

Pat

 

[aquarose]

Thanks everyone. I have tried the lawn mower method, but it seems to scatter more than it shreds. I forgot about the garbage can/string trimmer method. I will try that too. I just have SOOOO MANY leaves in the fall. Actually, I also decided to pile them up, unshredded where I don't want anything to grow, like next to the fence behind the rock garden, a difficult to access area. My neighbor rented a BIG commercial chipper/shredder for a couple of days this week and I told my family that that was what I wanted for my birthday. I wonder if the string trimmer in a can will work with a plastic garbage can?