My husband’s favorite yard toy, by leaps & bounds, is his Toro Leaf Blower & Vac. He borrowed a neighbor’s Toro a few years ago & loved the thing. He couldn’t stop talking about it. (Men!?) So I got him one for Father’s Day. What a gift, huh? Anyway, he was ecstatic when he opened it up. That was several years ago & he’s still ranting & raving about his toy all the time. His father also loves our Toro & uses it if there are any leaves lying around our yard when he comes to visit.

This blower is really versatile. It can be used to blow leaves or to vacuum them up. If you choose the VACUUM option then the machine MULCHES the leaves into small pieces. We usually suck the leaves up & then scatter the pieces in flowerbeds. It’s great in the fall to use these leaves as natural mulch around shrubs, trees, & perennials. Because the leaves are broken down after being sucked through the blower the pieces stay put. They do not blow around as normal leaves so easily do. Once they get wet they are especially likely to stay put in the bed without blowing into your yard.

We also dump some of the mulched leaves into our compost bin. We have yet to bag any leaves to be taken to the land fill. It works great for us in saving some money on mulch, works great for the plants in our yard, & works great to keep landfill space down a bit. In the spring we then cover our flowerbeds with costly double-shredded hardwood mulch.

When BLOWING leaves it is difficult to get them into nice, neat piles in my opinion. My husband disagrees & likes to use the Toro to first blow leaves into piles before sucking them up. I prefer to rake.

The unit comes with a large bag for containing sucked up leaves. It has a strap to slip over the user’s shoulder. My husband, father-in-law & I all agree that this is the unit’s biggest flaw. We each have a hard time keeping the strap over our shoulders. You’ll be surprised at how many leaves the bag will hold so it gets very heavy & slips easily. The bag has an easy to use zipper along one side to easily remove the mulched leaves from the bag.

The Toro is quite loud & is somewhat high-pitched in sound.

Toro has put a safety feature on this unit that is a good idea but a nuisance. If the tube used to suck leaves up becomes unscrewed from the motor piece then the machine shuts off. The reason being is so fingers don’t get mulched in the blades too! I love the idea but find the tube does come undone from the motor piece too often. On the other hand it just takes a second to twist it back together.

With all that said, my husband isn’t the only one who likes this thing – I like it too. And my father in-law loves it. It’ll pick up piles of leaves in no time & is made to last.
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PS: I hope I didn't offend anyone with this title; it's just a marketing thing (you know what I mean?).


Recommended: Yes