Best Garden Rakes
There are all sorts of jobs you can use different rakes to achieve. From levelling an area for turf to raking up leaves. I couldn’t cover all of them in this one blog. I’m going to concentrate on rakes designed for removing fallen leaves, grass clippings and other garden waste.
I will probably do another blog on the other rakes and when I do I’ll put the links just below. So look out for the links.
Here are some things you should look out for when buying a garden rake
Handle length
The handle lengths can vary a lot from rake to rake. I would try and get one that suits you and your height. The better suited the rake is to you the less likely you are to have aches and pains in your lower back.
Size of leaf scoop
Different sizes of leaf scoop will suit different jobs. For example; there’s no point trying to do intricate work between the plants with a rake the size of a car bonnet. Equally there is no point raking fallen leaves from your lawn with a hand rake.
Another thing to bear in mind is the bigger the leaf scoop the harder it is to drag. It is, however, a really good workout for your core.
Material
There are quite a few different materials used to make rakes. There’s different plastics and metals in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Hopefully you’ll get a better idea of what I mean as we go through the top 5.
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Best Spades
Here is Gardenwilds top 5 best spade.
This is a really long lasting, robust rake. We’ve used this rake a lot on the lawn for tasks like, fallen leaves or raking up after scarifying. It’s got a large scoop so, with a bit of elbow grease, it makes quick work of large areas.
The scoop is made of plastic which is both strong enough not to bend under the weight of its load, but soft enough no to damage the lawn.
The handle size might be on the long side but it didn’t really make a massive difference.
For these reasons this is No. 5 on Gardenwilds best garden rakes.
This is an interesting one. Definitely for people who like their multitools. This rake boasts 3 tools in 1.
It starts off as a 780mm leaf rake, then, by detaching the sides of the scoop, it becomes a small 280mm rake, and then the detached sides act as a leaf grabber.
The leaf rake is good and solid. When we got this rake I thought that the detachable side would flap about under pressure but they don’t. The smaller rake is actually quite useful, if not a bit novel.
The leaf grabber isn’t something that we’d normally use and it kind of feels like it’s been tacked on. However, it's still a good rake!
For these reasons this is No. 4 on Gardenwilds best garden rakes.
I’m not a massive fan of this kind of rake normally. However if you’re raking leaves and only leaves this is the rake for you!
I’ve really liked this rake when I’ve used it. It’s lightweight but feels pretty robust.
The height and the width are changeable, which I think is a good feature, especially when other family members are trying to come up with excuses to not rake the leaves. And it folds down so it is easy to store.
For these reasons this is No. 3 on Gardenwilds best garden rakes.
This is a changeable head for a Wold Garten handle. I really like the Wolf Garten range and I mentioned my best hand cultivator and best loppers blogs. We’ve got a couple of the Wolf Garten changeable heads (and the handle of course) and they’re all robust and well made tools!
This leaf rake is much the same. The plastic scoop is light and flexible as well as being very long lasting. It’s only 420mm wide which is actually perfect for both border work and work on lawns. And it takes up very little space being just the head.
The drawback to this tool is you will have to buy the handle separately. But once you’ve got it there are mountains of heads to choose from.
For these reasons this is No. 2 on Gardenwilds best garden rakes.
Here’s our number 1! And it’s not just our number one, it’s also endorsed by the RHS. I wasn’t a massive fan of this style of leaf rake until I started using this one. I used to look at the springy metal tines with a feeling of confusion and suspicion. But I was completely wrong. It’s amazing!
The springy times have this strange ability to flick leaves and other unwanted waste out of a border, while at the same time not disturbing any of the plants. The rake never gets clogged with leaves because of this flicking motion. It also works pretty well on gravel, which is a never ending nightmare to rake without removing half the gravel.
The rake is the perfect height for me at 1750mm (I’m 6ft tall) and is robust. All in all a really good rake!
For these reasons this is No. 1 on Gardenwilds best garden rakes.
