Picking up Sticks

[lawn mower fanatic]

OMG! lol I forgot I took these pictures this last Fall. Its from a huge Willow. I used the backpack plower to blow it it piles, then came in with the grasshopper with vac to pick it all up.

Nice!

 

[Carscw]

I would just mow over them with some gator blades. But not with a push mower

Sent from my iPhone using LMF

 

[Ric]

Last year I got a job to clean up all these sticks under a willow tree in mid-March so they could mow, because there were so many it would damage the mower. I had to just rake the sticks into piles and then put them onto a tarp and into a larger pile. Most of the sticks are around 1-2 feet long, but some can be 3 or 4 feet long. A lot of them are kind of bendable. After they were in a big pile they wanted me to put them into trash cans to get rid of. It took like 6 trash cans! :shocked: Anyway, my question is: Is there an easier way to pick them up? I am fine with putting them in a trash can, but it just took forever to rake them up. It took around 7-8 hours to do because I had to rake a good half acre! They will be calling me this year to do it so I was wondering if there are any faster ways to do it without spending much money because I only do it once a year!
Here is a picture of the pile of sticks. This was when I was like 1/2 of the way done! The pile is like 6.5 ft. long x 3.5 ft. high x 3 ft. wide! And that was nowhere near all of it!
View attachment 10740

Thanks in advance! :smile:

Wow, Lmf you end up in more situations, How in the world did you end up with this one

Well about the only way I know of is basically the way you're doing it. You can do like some others have suggested and use a good strong blower to make piles and that would save you a little time but the end result is going to be like mine, you'll either use trash cans or bags and bag them on the spot and leave them for pick up.

If I find this type of debris while doing a client I generally pick the stuff up and just throw it in the back of the truck and when I get back to the house the bagging starts.
What ever you do don't use a mower on sticks like that because or unless you like buying blades because there will be no way of sharpening the blades when your done, say nothing about the possible damage to the mowing deck that could happen.

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

Thanks, Ric. I figured there wouldn't be a big time-saving method for this.....but I wanted to just make sure. :smile:

 

[jenkinsph]

I use a pine needle rake for this kind of stuff, works great. Shouldn't take any longer than mowing.

 

[lawn mower fanatic]

I use a pine needle rake for this kind of stuff, works great. Shouldn't take any longer than mowing.

That's cool! :thumbsup: