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As spring approaches and the weather warms, it is time to begin turning your attention to the best types of lawn tools needed for the coming seasons. If keeping your lawn free of leaves, grass clippings, pine needles, and more is important to you, a high-quality lawn sweeper should be toward the top of your list for easy lawn cleaning.
The best lawn sweepers are easy to use, pick up a variety of different types of debris commonly found on lawns, not just leaves, with more speed and efficiency than a rake alone.
Below is a list of the seven best lawn sweepers according to our research to help you narrow down the types, brands, and models best suited for your lawn’s unique needs.
View The Best Lawn Sweepers Below
1. Agri-Fab 45-0492 Lawn Sweeper
The Agri-Fab 45-0492 is one of the best lawn sweeper models for those with large, treed properties. It’s large size, and capacity means fewer trips around the lawn and a reduced need to empty the hopper, saving you time. Also, it can fold away to minimize the storage space required.
The Agri-Fab 45-0492 sweeper’s offset design makes it possible to mow and sweep all at once with greater effectiveness for efficient lawn maintenance. Assembly is easy, and a universal hitch makes it compatible with most mowers and lawn tractors.
Pros:
+ Tow behind lawn sweeper for fast cleaning
+ 25 cubic feet capacity hopper
+ Dump lever does not require leaving the tractor seat
+ Folds away for compact storage
Why We Like It – The Agri-Fab 45-0492 Lawn Sweeper is a large tow behind lawn sweeper measuring in at 44” inches wide with a huge 25 cubic feet capacity hopper, allowing you to clean leaves, grass, and other debris from your lawn in a snap.
2. Ohio Steel 50SWP26 Pro Sweeper
If you want professional quality tools to tend to your lawn’s care, the Ohio Steel 50SWP26 Pro Sweeper is one of the best lawn sweeper designs you need to have on your list to research. The wide 42-inch tow behind sweeper and 26 cubit feet hopper capacity can make quick work of clearing a lawn, and 11-inch polypropylene brushes spiraled for added efficiency, get the job done well.
Ohio Steel’s extra-wide chute helps prevent clogs, even if used in damp areas. The 5 position hitch makes it compatible with most mowers, and the hopper can be emptied without leaving your seat.
Pros:
+ 42-inch tow behind lawn sweeper for fast cleaning
+ 26 cubic feet capacity hopper
+ 5 position hitch adjustment increases compatibility
+ Collapsable hopper can be removed for compact storage
Why We Like It – The Ohio Steel 50SWP26 Pro Sweeper is designed for professional-grade lawn maintenance, making it one of the best lawn sweeper models for performance, speed, and ease of use.
3. Earthwise Leaf & Grass Push Lawn Sweeper
A push lawn sweeper is a budget-friendly alternative for those with smaller lawns. This push lawn sweeper by Earthwise balances size, durability, and efficiency in one easy to use package. It is constructed of lightweight but hearty materials to be easy to push while lasting years. The brush height is simple to control with a dial in the front of the sweeper. It does an admirable job of collecting up to 80% of leaves and grass in a single pass.
Also, it has a tool-free assembly and folds to save on storage space.
Pros:
+ 21” inch brush width
+ 2.6-bushel capacity hopper
+ Dial controlled height adjustment
+ Light but durable construction
Why We Like It – The Earthwise LSW70021 Push Lawn Sweeper is easy to use with a balance of size, durability, and efficiency that makes it one of the best lawn sweeper options for those on a budget.
4. Ohio Steel 42SWP22 Sweeper Spiral Brush
Similar to the other Ohio Steel lawn sweeper on this list, the Ohio Steel 42SWP22 is one of the best tow lawn sweeper models available and should be on your list of lawn sweepers to consider if you want fast and easy lawn sweeping with professional results. The sweeper offers a 42-inch sweeping width featuring the company’s patented 11-inch brushes. The 9-inch chute resists clogging for faster and easier work, and the 5-position hitch allows you to customize the attachment to fit it to almost any lawn tractor or mower.
Also, the hopper accommodates up to 22 cubic feet of debris, is easy to empty, and collapses for space-saving storage.
Pros:
+ 42-inch sweeping width
+ 22 cubic foot capacity hopper
+ Ohio Steel’s patented 11-inch spiraled brushes
+ 5-position hitch adjustment
Why We Like It – The Ohio Steel 42SWP22 Sweeper provides a simple and speedy way to clean your yard of leaves, grass, and more with professional quality.
5. Brinly STS-427LXH Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper
If the thought of needing to make two or more passes to fully clear your lawn of debris seem ludicrous to you, the Brinly STS-427LXH Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper may be among the best sweepers for you to consider. Along with a wide 42-inch sweeping width and 20 cubic foot capacity, the Brinly STS-427LXH has a 5:1 brush to wheel ratio with its six high-velocity brushes. This means there are more brushes catching leaves, grass, and other debris at all times for some of the best cleaning results out there for a tow behind lawn sweeper.
Pros:
+ 42-inch sweeping width
+ 20 cubic foot capacity hopper
+ 6 high-velocity brushes
+ Twist lock height adjustment
Why We Like It – The Brinly STS-427LXH Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper’s high-velocity brushes and brush to wheel ratio make it one of the best lawn sweepers for those who absolutely refuse to make additional passes while demanding amazing results.
6. Agri-Fab 45-0320 Tow Lawn Sweeper
The Agri-Fab 45-0320 is among the best tow lawn sweeper models for those who want a fast and easy to use method cleaning their lawn but do not need the larger capacity hoppers of other models. While still offering a 42-inch sweeping path and 4.5:1 brush to wheel ratio, the smaller 12 cubic foot holding capacity makes this lawn sweeper a more budget-friendly option.
The sweeper may be emptied without needing to leave your seat, and a universal hitch means it is compatible with a wide range of tractors and mowers. Also, it is backed by a three-year limited warranty.
Pros:
+ 42-inch sweeping width
+ 12 cubic foot capacity hopper
+ 4.5:1 brush to wheel ratio
+ Universal hitch
+ 3 year limited warranty
Why We Like It – High-efficiency design, a wide sweeping path, and smaller hopper place the Agri-Fab 45-0320 among the best lawn sweeper models for those with smaller lawns or ones with few trees.
7. Agri-Fab 45-0218 Push Lawn Sweeper
Those who have a smaller lawn can save time and money with a 26-inch push lawn sweeper like the Agri-Fab 45-0218. Generally speaking, push lawn sweepers are smaller and less expensive than tow behind types of lawn sweepers, and the Agri-Fab 45-0218 finds an ideal balance between size and price point.
The brush to wheel ratio of 4.5:1 means you will need fewer passes to clear your lawn than models with larger ratios. The poly construction is durable while also being lightweight, meaning it is easy to use and control.
Pros:
+ 26-inch sweeping width
+ 7 cubic foot capacity hopper
+ 4.5:1 brush to wheel ratio
+ Easy to use brush height adjustment
+ Plastic wheels never go flat
Why We Like It – The Agri-Fab 45-0218 is a 26-inch push lawn sweeper ideal for those with smaller lawns. It provides fast and effective sweeping in a lightweight and durable package that is also budget-friendly.
Lawn Sweeper Buyer’s Guide
What exactly is a lawn sweeper?
You can think of a lawn sweeper as a cross between the old fashioned linoleum sweepers that would sweep dirt and dust into a built-in bin and a vacuum cleaner but designed for cleaning your lawn. Some models are manual. Other lawn sweepers are powered, but one thing they all have in common is they are designed to sweep up mess and debris from your lawn to keep it looking as neat and trim as possible throughout the year.
A good lawn sweeper will gather up much more than you can easily clear with a rake, and it will get the job done faster as well. After all, a good rake may be sufficient for gathering leaves, cones, and pine needles, but even the best rake is a poor tool to use for gathering small items such as maple seeds, acorns, and grass clippings. Even then, raking a large lawn can take hours and leave you with a sore back and blistered hands, especially early in the season. The best lawn sweepers cut this time investment by a considerable amount while also being easy on your back and hands.
They work using a mechanism similar to both the linoleum sweepers mentioned before. This is also similar to a vacuum’s mechanism without the addition of suction. Dense brushes are attached to the front wheel axil. As the axil turns, these brushes are turned as well, causing them to sweep debris from your lawn into the attached hopper as the sweeper is moved along your lawn.
This provides easy cleaning and gathering without the need for repetitive movements on your part. Depending on the style of sweeper, you merely push it along your lawn or tow it behind your tractor or mower until the hopper is full. Empty and repeat as needed.
What is the best lawn sweeper to buy?
Since no two lawns are exactly alike, the features that make a lawn sweeper better than other sweepers will vary. The needs of someone with a small lawn with no trees dropping leaves into the autumn will be far different than those of a family with a large lawn with multiple trees. A family who prefers to allow their lawn to grow a bit taller will need different features in their lawn sweeper than a family who keeps their grass cut short throughout the year. So it is important to keep your lawn size, type, preferences, and expectations in mind when researching sweepers to make easy work of cleaning your lawn throughout the year.
First, consider the size of your lawn. The larger the lawn, the more likely it is a larger lawn sweeper designed to be towed behind a lawn tractor or mower will be your best bet for quick and easy clean up of leaves, grass clippings, and twigs. Small lawns are usually best suited by one of the smaller lawn sweeper models designed to be pushed.
Also, your budget for lawn care and maintenance should be kept in consideration here. The larger models designed to be pulled behind a mower tend to be much more expensive than the smaller push sweeper models, so it may be necessary to strike a balance between convenience in keeping your lawn clean and managing your budget. If leaves are your main concern over clippings, and you have a large lawn with just one or two trees, a push sweeper may be all you really need.
Next, think about the brushes used in a lawn sweeper, their design and the brush to wheel ratio. A yard sweeper works under the same basic principle as a vacuum, minus suction. Brushes are attached to the front wheel axil. As the axil spins, the brushes comb through the top half-inch or so of grass and sweep any debris into the attached hopper. The design of these brushes and how tightly they are packed on the axil will drastically change how easy it is to clear a lawn of clippings, leaves, seeds, and more using your sweeper.
The larger the brush to wheel ratio for a particular sweeper, the more debris is collected with a single pass of the sweeper over the lawn. However, you also have to keep the brush design in mind as well. Stiff, tightly packed bristles will collect a lot of leaves and clippings, but they can also damage the blades of more delicate grass species.
How easy a lawn sweeper is to assemble, adjust, and store between uses is yet another factor to keep in mind when considering different sweeper models. The majority of the sweeper models included on our list above are easy to assemble and require few tools to do so. This helps to ensure you can begin using your sweeper as quickly as possible and achieve the best results for your effort.
The easier it is to adjust the height of the sweeper brushes, the faster and better you will be able to tend your garden, even over uneven terrain with uniform results. A lawn sweeper can be a large piece of lawn equipment, especially those with a large capacity hopper bag, so the ability to collapse or fold away is also a good feature to have in a sweeper.
Speaking of a hopper bag, this is another area to keep in mind when searching for the best product for your lawn and garden. The higher the bag’s capacity, the more leaves, and clippings can be collected before you must stop to dump them out. Yet, most of today’s models have mechanisms to make this process as fast and easy as possible. Many of the tow-behind models do not even require you to climb down from your seat in order to do so.
As with any tool, durability is another major concern. Pneumatic wheels are good for absorbing shocks, but they can and likely will flatten over time and require maintenance. Many models come with semi-pneumatic wheels or solid wheels. These options are less shock absorbant but hold up better over time. Considering lawn sweepers tend to work at their best when pulled slower versus faster, this is one area where durability is often preferable over shock absorption.
Look for powder-coated metals or poly frames for their durability when searching, and make sure to check the lawn sweeper reviews while searching for a suitable sweeper. Most listings do not feature the material of the hopper bag, so there are times where these are your best information resource.
Are lawn sweepers effective?
Yes, on the whole, lawn sweepers are easy to use and effective tools for clearing your lawn of clippings, leaves, and other debris. However, there are a few factors capable of affecting how your lawn sweeper performs. No matter whether you have a push lawn sweeper or a tow behind lawn sweeper, their effectiveness often depends on how well they are maintained and under what conditions you use them.
As with any new tool, there is a slight learning curve when working with a new lawn sweeper. It may take a bit of trial and error to find the method of use that works best for you and your lawn’s unique needs.
Start by making sure your lawn is dry before you begin sweeping. As with mowers, sweepers work best on dry ground. Wet leaves, grass clippings, and other damp debris can cling to the brushes and clump, causing clogs and lowering the efficiency of your lawn sweeper. It can be tempting to get out and jump on lawn care early in the day, especially in the summer, in an attempt to beat the heat. Yet, in doing this, you make the job harder and longer to finish effectively. Allowing enough time for the morning dew or recent rains to evaporate and leave the grass and leaves dry will result in easier and faster sweeping and save time overall.
Also, a lawn sweeper will work far better on cut grass than a lawn that has grown out. Structurally, lawn sweepers are similar to a vacuum cleaner without suction. If you have ever had a vacuum whose brushes became tangled and clogged, you can imagine how well a lawn sweeper will work under similar conditions. Yet, even if the brushes do not become clogged, the farther they must lift and comb debris through blades of grass, the less effective they will become at removing them. If you would not expect a vacuum with poor suction to clean crumbs out of a shag carpet, how can you expect a lawn sweeper to catch each leaf and clipping from tall grass?
The next couple of points are where trial and error come into play. After all, each lawn is different, so blanket statements are unhelpful for these points.
Play with your speed a bit. Again, this is the same for tow-behind lawn sweeper models as well as push lawn sweeper models, though those capable of being pulled behind a tractor or riding mower to encourage operators to use higher speeds. While you cannot really go too slow for effective sweeper use, it can be fairly easy to go to quickly.
For an illustration, let’s go back to the vacuum analogy. As a child or teen, did you ever try and vacuum as fast as you could just to get the chore done, especially when irritated about having to do it at all? How well did it clean the carpets you were tasked to sweep? While many particles may have been caught by the brushes, chances are, little to nothing of what was in the carpet was picked up and collected in the bag or canister. When you push a vacuum over carpet too quickly, larger particles are more likely to be flung away from the device rather than collected. The same can happen with a lawn sweeper.
This can also be exaggerated when a leaf sweeper is used on a lawn with uneven patches or bumpy ground throughout. The hopper for most lawn sweepers is open on the top. Even if items are not flung away from the sweeper, they may end up being blown or bounced out of the hopper after being collected if you are moving too quickly. For the best results, start by moving the lawn sweeper slowly and work you way faster until you find a balance between speed and effectiveness to suit your sweeper and lawn.
Also, it is not just material bouncing out of the sweeper’s hopper you must be concerned about when moving a lawn sweeper over uneven ground too quickly. All of this jostling about can disrupt your brush settings and cause damage to the sweeper if such use is continued over time. So a good rule of thumb is, the rougher your lawn’s terrain, the slower you should push or pull your lawn sweeper.
Next, consider how you have your brushes set. Most lawn sweepers provide adjustable brush height to accommodate different grass lengths. You can again think of this in similar terms to how you would use a vacuum inside the home. The thicker the carpet pile, the higher you need to set your brushes. The same goes for the use of a lawn sweeper. Generally speaking, a height a half-inch lower than the height of the grass is recommended, but this may not work for every lawn due to a number of factors.
It should be noted, while a higher brush height will sweep visible debris from taller grass, small but “heavy” items such as acorns or maple seeds may settle too far into taller grass to be picked up on higher settings. This may not be a major concern for most, but when these seeds are missed, they will eventually sprout. Dependant upon species and the height saplings are allowed to reach between mowings; this may cause issues for mower function and how often the blades must be maintained.
Do not try and push to see how far you can make it between rounds of emptying your hopper. As stated before, most models leave the top of the hopper open. If you go too long before emptying it, the material cleared from your lawn will begin to leak, bounce, or blow out of it. So save yourself some time having to go back and sweep the same area multiple times and simply empty the sweeper at regular intervals.
Going back to the vacuum analogy once again, take the time to prepare your lawn before sweeping it. After all, you would not risk damaging a vacuum by neglecting to pick up toys or dropped coins, so why would you attempt to use a sweeper over large sticks, limbs, and rocks? Not only are these items beyond the capabilities of most lawn sweepers, but most are large and heavy enough to cause damage to your sweeper should you attempt to push it over them.
Also, no lawn sweeper comes with hoses or attachments to reach into hard to reach places like a vacuum does, so clearing out from under bushes, around your home or fences. In other tight, difficult to reach areas should be done before you begin sweeping for best results. In this way, while using a lawn sweeper may save you a great deal of time using a rake, it can still be handy to have one available.
Take a few minutes before you begin using your lawn sweeper to rake along the sides of your home, fences, under bushes, and anywhere else you cannot reach with your mower or sweeper. You do not have to move it far, just into space where you can run the sweeper by a bit later.
Do lawn sweepers pick up grass clippings?
Yes, most lawn sweeper models will pick up grass clippings in addition to twigs, acorns, pine cones, leaves, and pine needles. One of the main tasks home and property owners employ a lawn sweeper to do is collect grass clippings from spring to fall. This is especially helpful in areas, and for grass species, where excess clippings may hinder lawn health by blocking light, moisture, and air enough to inhibit growth in addition to decreasing the look of the lawn.
Also, the existence of lawn sweeper models capable of being towed behind a riding lawnmower during cutting means this chore can be accomplished in the same amount of time it takes to cut the lawn.
Can you use a lawn sweeper while mowing?
Tow behind lawn sweeper models may be used while mowing using a riding mower. Because most mowers toss clippings to one side of the mower or the other, you may need to make a couple of extra passes after mowing is complete to gather the last of the clippings. This does make mowing take a few more minutes, but it is well worth it for the time saved overall when compared to mowing and then performing a full sweep afterward.
However, it should be noted; this is not an ideal solution for lawns requiring a lower to be reversed during cutting. Also, certain riding mowers may have top speeds too fast to allow for optimum use of your lawn sweeper. In these cases, throttling down and cutting at a slightly slower speed will yield better results while still saving you time overall.
Conclusion
When researching lawn sweepers, there are a few different factors to keep in mind to narrow down the best lawn sweeper for your lawn’s unique needs. Consider the amount and types of debris you will be cleaning. Are you simply looking for a way to clear leaves from your lawn each fall, or do you need brushes that can handle more items such as grass clippings, pine needles, maple seeds, twigs, and more?
Consider the size of your lawn and how much debris that generally needs to be removed in relation to your lawn maintenance budget. Larger lawns with more trees dropping leaves throughout the seasons are better suited for a lawn sweeper designed to be pulled behind a lawn tractor or mower. Smaller lawns or ones with few sources of debris are a better fit for push lawn sweepers, which are usually also easier on a tight budget.
