Best Leaf Shredder Reviews
Leaves can be difficult to deal with. In autumn, once all of the leaves have fallen, raking and bagging leaves can take a long time and a lot of space. It’s difficult to get all the leaves into a reasonable number of bags, especially if you have a lot of trees in your yard. This is where the best leaf shredder can help you. Grinding leaves into a smaller size means more can fit in each bag, making it easier to get the work done once and for all.
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What Does a Leaf Shredder Do?
Leaf shredders have a grinding mechanism that will pulverize leaves and some small twigs as they’re dropped through. You feed the leaves from the top where they will be chopped up and dropped below into a bag, container, or just onto the ground.
Benefits of Getting a Good Leaf Shredder
What good does a leaf shredder actually do for you? Here are some of the benefits you’ll get from a shredder:
Fantastic Compost Sourcing
Leaves make a great addition to your compost pile, but they can take a long time to decompose when put in whole. Using a leaf shredder, you can chop leaves up into small pieces that will decompose very quickly in the compost. Instead of waiting for 3 – 6 months for the leaves to compost, you’ll have them ready in 1 – 2 months.
Reduce Your Leaf Bags
Normally, leaves are difficult to force into a bag. There’s too much air between the whole leaves, so you can’t actually fill them up. When you grind up your leaves, you’ll get more than 8 times as many leaves in each bag, cutting down the number of bags you need significantly. It can be a slower process, but it’s worth it if you want to reduce your bags and make it easier to get rid of leaves. Come it with a great chainsaw and you’ll reduce all your yard waste down to small, easy to manage chunks instead of large piles!
Make Homemade Mulch
Ground up leaves aren’t just useful for compost; they’re also great for mulching. Since many leaf shredders are also able to grind up small twigs, you can make excellent mulch for your garden with leaves and twigs. They will be chopped up into small pieces that will evenly cover the garden with healthy, organic materials. This is also nice if you have an outdoor fish pond. Things like Koi fish pond filters will easily clog from wood mulch, but can handle most leaf pieces.
Top 5 Leaf Shredder Reviews Comparison Table
Product Name | Image | Debris Size Capacity | Cutting Blade Type | Power Source | Portability | Attachable Bags? | Our Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
| Cutting line | Electric, 13 Amps | Less than 20 lbs., breaks down for storage | Yes, sold separately | #1 | ||
 | Leaves and small twigs | Cutting line + shaped blades | Electric, 5.9 Amps | 17 lbs., carrying handles, foldaway storage | Yes, sold separately | #2 | ||
 | Leaves and small twigs | Cutting line | Electric, 13 Amps | 13.4 lbs, compact storage | Yes, sold separately | #3 | ||
 | Leaves, branches up to 1 & ½ in. | Blades | Electric, 15 Amps | 8 In. wheels, 25.4 lbs. | 25.5” x 17.63” x 27.13” inches | #4 | ||
 | Leaves, branches up to 1 & ½ in. | Blades | Electric, 14 Amps | 6 In. wheels, | Yes, sold separately | #5 |
How to Choose the Best Leaf Shredder
You need to look closely at the features of each machine before you make a purchase. What makes the best leaf shredder instead of a mediocre one? Here are some of the things to look at:
Debris Size
Different types of leaf shredders exist. Some are made exclusively for leaves and small twigs, while some also act as chipper shredders for branches as well. If you just want to grind leaves, getting a full chipper shredder will be a waste of money, and the grinding mechanism won’t be as effective for leaves. However, if you have multiple uses for your machine, a leaf shredder/chipper shredder combination might be a great choice for you.
Cutting Blade Type
Leaf shredders can use different mechanisms to grind up the leaves you drop into the feeder. Some use cutting line, similar to the line used in weed eaters. Others use actual metal blades that spin around and chop up leaves and other small materials. The large chipper shredder machines sometimes have bigger metal blades with sharper edges.
For leaves only, cutting line is a cheap and useful solution for chopping. You don’t need a lot of strength or power to cut up a bunch of leaves. Cutting line does a fine job and is very cheap to replace when it’s running low.
Power Source
Most leaf shredders today are electric, but the more powerful units are sometimes gas-powered instead. If you have a large yard with a lot of stuff to chop, a gas-powered machine might be useful. However, these are usually more expensive, heavier, and less portable.
Electric leaf shredders make up the majority of the best leaf shredder machines for the average homeowner. Those working commercially might look for gasoline machines, but most homeowners won’t need anything more powerful than an electric machine.
Portability
When you want to get your leaf shredder out and use it in the yard, it’s useful to be able to do that easily. A machine that’s lighter weight, has wheels, or can collapse for storage easily is an asset for the average person. Storage is especially important, since you don’t need a leaf shredder throughout most of the year and will use it most frequently in a period of a few months. If you’re getting a smaller machine, wheels or other features won’t be as necessary. But, larger machine can be quite heavy and may be difficult to move without wheels or some other feature.
Attachable Bags?
If you’re planning to bag up your leaves, being able to attach a bag to the bottom of the leaf shredder will be a big plus for you. That way, you won’t have to scoop up the small leaf pieces, and you can simply have them fall into the bag once they’re ground up. Some leaf shredders come with large bags that you can use to catch debris and spread it around for mulch, but others allow you to attach your own disposable bags to the bottom for catching pieces.
Conclusion
From the leaf shredders I’ve mentioned in the comparison table above, I would recommend the WORX Leaf Mulcher WG430 as best leaf shredder. It’s got a 13 Amp engine that’s powerful enough to spin the cutting line and chop leaves down to 1/11th of their normal size. It also breaks down easily for storage, so during the off-seasons you don’t have to have it taking up too much space in the garage or shed.
