Skip to Content

5 Simple Ways to Pick up Fallen Pine Needles

5 Simple Ways to Pick up Fallen Pine Needles

Share this post:

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, I may earn a commission. Also, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Pine trees are incredibly beautiful and you very likely love having them in your yard. There’s something about having nice big pine trees that makes a property that much more aesthetically pleasing.

This doesn’t mean that every aspect of having pine trees in your yard will be good, though. In fact, there are some things about owning pine trees that can be a bit annoying.

Pine needles are going to fall off of your pine trees from time to time. You can wind up having a lot of pine needles all over your yard if you don’t take the time to pick them up.

Many people feel that picking up pine needles is a bit inconvenient. The needles are very thin individually, and getting all of them can be quite a chore.

Are there better ways to go about picking up pine needles? Read on to learn about the best methods for picking up pine needles so that you can get the job done without it being a huge hassle.

1 – Raking Is a Common Option

Raking is one of the ideas that you might turn to first. This can work out just fine, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be super easy.

Some people don’t like trying to rake pine needles because of how much harder they are to rake than leaves. It certainly isn’t impossible to get good results using a rake, but you have to understand how thin pine needles can be.

Often, pine needles will escape through the tines of the rake due to being so thin. It’s usually best to try to rake a bunch of them so that you can move them into piles effectively.

This is definitely the standard way to pick pine needles up from your yard, though. It’s the method that most people choose to utilize because just about everyone owns a rake.

If you want to make things easier on yourself, then you should consider buying a specific type of rake that will do well with this job. Purchasing a groundskeeper rake will help you to make short work on pine needles.

You’ll still need to focus and try to group the pine needles up, of course, but it’ll be better than a standard garden rake. Once you’ve been able to rake all of the pine needles into neat piles, you’ll be able to bag them up and dispose of them how you see fit.

2 – Sweep Them with a Broom

Sweeping the pine needles with a broom is another standard trick that people turn to. This is probably the second most common option that people turn to when they need to pick up pine needles.

If you have a broom, then you can just take it outside and use it to sweep the pine needles into piles. This is going to work really nicely on certain surfaces.

The problem is that it only works well on specific surfaces. You’ll probably have an easy time sweeping pine needles on your patio, deck, porch, driveway, and walkways using a broom.

A broom might be a little less useful when you’re trying to pick pine needles up from the grass. You might be able to use some types of brooms on dirt, but you’ll likely need to wash the bristles afterward.

Essentially, you just need to know that brooms can be useful for picking up pine needles in certain situations. You might not want to use a broom for this job if you’re picking up pine needles on your lawn.

3 – Leaf Blowers Work Well

Leaf blowers can actually work really well to help you pick up pine needles. If you already own a leaf blower, then you should definitely try this out since it’ll help you to get things done fast.

Even a generic leaf blower that lacks much power will be able to move pine needles around just fine. Pine needles are very small, thin, and lightweight.

You could be able to use a leaf blower to maneuver the pine needles into rough piles in a timely fashion. This will allow you to get them in place so that you can bag them later on.

The only problem with using a leaf blower is that you’ll likely need to do a bit of raking as well. You can’t usually make neat piles using a leaf blower, and this means that you might have to tidy things up a bit with your rake so that you’ll be ready to scoop the pine needles into a bag.

Regardless, it’s convenient to have a leaf blower because it can speed things up substantially. You’ll save yourself a bit of time if you have access to a leaf blower.

4 – Use a Shop-Vac

Do you happen to own a shop-vac? Shop-vacs are very convenient because they allow you to vacuum up many different things.

These vacuums can help you to clean up spills and they’re also great for cleaning out cars. You can certainly use one to help you pick up pine needles if you want to as well.

When you use a shop-vac outdoors, it’ll be possible to vacuum up pine needles efficiently. You might wind up getting some other debris along with the pine needles, but it works out pretty well overall.

If you have a shop-vac, then you’ll be able to pick up the pine needles faster than you ever thought. It’s an efficient way to tackle a problem such as this.

You can also find vacuums that are specifically meant to be used outdoors. Just don’t use the normal vacuum cleaner that you use for your living room.

5 – Picking Things up by Hand

This idea is not the most efficient one, but you could simply pick the pine needles up by hand. You can pick pine needles up in piles and place them into a bag little by little.

Doing things this way will take a lot of time in all likelihood. It’s not going to be as efficient or pleasant as using a rake, broom, vacuum, or leaf blower.

If you simply don’t have good tools to do the job and don’t want to spend any cash, then this can work out okay. You’ll just need to spend several hours picking things up by hand.

Those who have lots of pine trees with many pine needles to pick up off the ground will not want to attempt this. It’s too tedious and time-consuming.

Turn to the methods above first and only pick the pine needles up by hand if you really have no other choice. This will keep you from wasting too much of your precious time.

Final Thoughts

There are many ways that you can try to pick up pine needles in your yard. Some of the best ones involve using standard tools that you likely already own such as rakes, brooms, and leaf blowers.

You could also use something such as a shop-vac to take care of the job efficiently. If all else fails, you could pick the pine needles up by hand and place them into a bag.

Try to keep up on the pine needles that fall to the ground so that it doesn’t get overwhelming. It’s better to pick the pine needles up semi-regularly than to wait too long and have an absurd number of them to deal with.

--

If you want more backyard tips including recipes, how-tos and more, make sure you subscribe to my youtube channel

Share this post: