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Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
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Credit:
Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
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True to its name, the Tru Tough can stand up to heavy use. We like how lightweight it is, but also the head's heftiness, making for smooth raking. Read More
The blunt tines on this rake can get easily clogged with pine needles, and the interesting rectangular head is only okay at picking up leaves. Read More
The Razor-Back is a sturdy rake that will handle heavy use well and stay comfortable in your hands. Read More
This Bully Tools rake is an average rake that will get the job done, it just might damage your lawn. Read More
This is an attractive rake that will get the job done, but may cause a lot of lawn damage in the process. Read More
Leaves are a pain to clean up—especially when they're covering your whole yard. Whether it's the end of summer, and you're just starting to see the leaves turn, or you've decided to put off yard clean up until after Halloween and Thanksgiving to hold onto that leafy autumnal aesthetic, you're going to need a reliable rake to help you to take care of the mess—and to rake your leaf pile back up again after you've jumped into it.
Choosing the best leaf rake is more involved than blindly adding the first search result to your online shopping cart. To make your work easier, we tested the most highly-recommended rakes on the market to see which ones performed the best.
To really put the best rakes to the test, we spent some quality time raking in a New England lawn that was so overgrown you wouldn't want to approach it without gardening gloves. After raking through piles of leaves, pine needles, acorns, and rocks (in the rain, I might add), we liked the lightweight Truper Tru Tough 24-inch Leaf Rake (available at Amazon) the best, due to its solid performance and ease of use.
Comfortably short and adept at raking leaves.
With a huge rake head that features large plastic tines, this rake from Bully Tools does an excellent job at pine needles and detritus.
Gardens are full of narrow corridors where one size fits all isn't the rule.
Adjustable
Lightweight
Doesn't clog easily
Flimsy construction
Uncomfortable to use
Adjustable
All Steel
Feels flimsy
Creates lawn damage
I’m Cailey Lindberg, a Staff Writer on the Home Team here at Reviewed. Two years ago, I bought a house with a huge backyard with my partner and I’ve been raking leaves every fall and spring since. While testing multiple rakes at once can be daunting, my yard was certainly in tip-top shape by the time I finished.
The original testing for this guide was done by Reviewed's senior scientist Julia MacDougall.
We put each rake to the test to see which ones reigned supreme.
Unsurprisingly, the core of the testing for these rakes involved actually raking leaves. However, we made sure that these rakes were tested out in a variety of circumstances, including the terrain type (hilly vs. irregular vs. flat) and lawn debris (leaves, acorns, small sticks, pine needles, etc.).
In addition to raking performance, we also took note of some more subjective aspects of each rake, such as how quickly the rake clogged with lawn debris, how comfortable it was to hold, and how well-built it was.
The best rake for you will largely depend on what kind of landscape you want to be raking. Here are a few areas to consider before buying a new rake.
Lawn debris—What kind of lawn debris do you have in your yard? You may have leaves, acorns, small sticks, pine needles, or anything else that falls off of trees. If you’re often dealing with something more complex than just leaves, it may help to have rake tines that are further apart. This way, it’s less likely to get clogged with sticks or pine needles.
The best rakes will get the job done without damaging your lawn.
On the other hand, tines that are spaced too far apart may start to miss leaves and require you to rake the same swath of ground over and over again. Also, look for rakes that have "Medium Duty" or "Heavy Duty" labels; "Light Duty" rakes are best for raking jobs that just involve leaves.
Terrain—Do you have a relatively flat lawn space, or does your backyard have slopes, hills, or dips? Plastic rakes, which are more rigid, will do a good job clearing leaves from a flat lawn, but the tines may have more trouble reaching all of the leaves located in ditches, divots, or hills. The tines on metal rakes are more flexible, and it will be easier to pull leaves and other lawn debris out of non-flat places.
Grass height—Do you have low grass that just peeks out of the hard ground, grass that fully covers your lawn, or tall grass? While metal rakes can work well on all three types of grass, the sharp edges of the metal rake may leave marks or gouges on the lawn if the ground is exposed. Additionally, tall grass may get tangled in the spaces between the metal tines. Plastic rakes generally do not leave scratches on a hard ground surface.
Handle material—While it’s common for rakes to have wooden handles, they may not be conducive to your comfort if you’re raking for long periods of time. Fiberglass and metal handles are smoother, lighter, and often come with grips on the end of the handle that can make it easier and more comfortable to hold and wield the rake for however long you need.
Handle height— While long handles can make it easier to reach leaves further away, they can prove to be cumbersome if you’re shorter or if you have shorter arms. Make sure the raking motion feels natural, and that your backhand doesn’t have to stretch a long way to grab the end of the handle.
The length of a rake is very important when thinking about your comfort.
In my experience, if you stand a rake upright next to you, the end of the handle shouldn't be much taller than your height, or too much shorter than your chin. If it's too long, the arm that reaches for the back end of the rake will hurt from constantly stretching beyond your normal range of motion, and if it's too short, you'll be bending over a lot.
Rake head width— Most of the time you see a measurement in a rake's product name, it's referring to the maximum width of the rake head, that is, the horizontal distance from the first tine to the last tine. This number also translates roughly into the width of the swath of lawn you can rake in a single sweep.
Most rake heads are about 24 inches wide; usually, it's a trade-off between rake head width and the size of the debris you'd like to rake. A wider rake head means that the tines are probably further apart, leaving space for smaller lawn debris to slip through the tines. The reverse is true for a narrower rake head—it's best for smaller debris, since it may end up clogging quickly otherwise.
Julia is the Senior Scientist at Reviewed, which means that she oversees (and continually updates) the testing of products in Reviewed's core categories such as televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, and more. She also determines the testing methods and standards for Reviewed's "The Best Right Now" articles.
Cailey Lindberg
Staff Writer, Updates
Cailey Lindberg is a Staff Writer at Reviewed and full-time Dog Mom to @sandor_thebassethound. In her spare time, she writes about music and history for Mental Floss.
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