Put Your Fall Leaves to Work With The Best Leaf Mulchers (2024)

With fall just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to do with all the autumn leaves your trees are about to dump on your lawn. You can rake them into a pile at the curb for the city to pick up, or you can run them through a leaf mulcher and make fresh fertilizer to help prep your soil for next season.

Like a paper shredder for dead leaves, leaf mulchers break autumn’s glory down into tiny pieces that are ideal for mulching your landscaped beds or nourishing plants as compost. Though some manufacturers still make traditional stationary mulchers, which take piled leaves and turn them to mulch, mulching functionality is often built into handheld leaf vacuums that suck up leaves and immediately grind them into compost. For larger yards, you can get a lawn-mower-like walk-behind model, or even a tow-behind mulcher that hooks up to a lawn tractor. Whatever size leaf collecting chore you have on your fall to-do list, we’ve got the best leaf mulcher for the job.

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• Best Overall: Echo ES-250 Shred ‘N’ Vac Gas Handheld Leaf Blower
• Best Value: Black+Decker BV3600 3-in-1 Electric Leaf Blower/Leaf Vacuum/Mulcher
• Best Stationary: Worx WG430 Electric Leaf Mulcher
• Best Walk-Behind Mulcher: Troy-Bilt CSV060B 24-Inch Chipper Shredder Vacuum
• Best Cordless Handheld: Ryobi 40V Vac Attack Leaf Vacuum/Mulcher

The Expert: I’m a freelance writer who has written about landscaping, home improvement, gardening, and home security for publications like Bob Vila, U.S. News and World Report, Pro Tool Reviews and CNN Underscored, among others. As someone whose property backs up to a heavily wooded area, I use a mulcher every year to clear my yard efficiently, and have tested many different models over the years.

Before you run out and buy the first leaf mulcher you can find, it’s important to understand what these machines are (and are not) capable of doing. Leaf mulchers use a steel impeller or flexible line, similar to what you’d find in a string trimmer, to shred dry leaves into smaller particles that will compost easily or make your lawn cleanup easy.

Keep in mind that you should try to avoid feeding anything harder or heavier than leaves into your mulcher. Large mulchers can handle light lawn debris, such as twigs and acorns, but even the biggest ones are primarily made for processing leaves, not sticks or branches. For that job, you’ll need a wood chipper.

As someone whose property backs up to dense woods, I’m treated to the natural splendor of a forest turning red and gold with the arrival of autumn each year… And saddled with cleaning it up when the splendor lands on my lawn. To make the job easier, I always use a leaf mulcher to break down those leaves into free mulch, which I use to winterize my garden and landscaping.

I compiled these recommendations after years of testing leaf mulchers every season, along with hours of research comparing specs and customer reviews from such retailers as Lowe’s, The Home Depot, and Amazon for various types of leaf mulchers. Whether you’re looking for a handheld mulcher/blower for cleaning up a small yard or are tasked with clearing a thick carpet of leaves from 1/2-acre of land, one of our picks is sure to suit your needs.

With a powerful 25.4 cc gas engine, the Echo ES-250 Shred ‘N’ Vac is a strong leaf blower and mulcher in a single machine, giving you all the tools you need to clear a large leaf-covered yard. The Shred ‘N’ Vac can push up to 391 CFM of air at a max air speed of 165 miles per hour in leaf blower mode, which is above average power for a handheld model without a backpack motor.

After blowing leaves into a pile, you can convert it from blower to mulcher and vacuum the leaves into a large two-bushel collection bag. The Shred ‘N’ Vac boasts a 12:1 mulching ratio, making short work of your whole lawn and rewarding you with a small amount of fine mulch.

Regardless of what mode you use, its easy-to-start electric ignition and cruise control makes it easy to operate. The Echo ES-250 combines two lawn machines and excels at both tasks, making it a strong choice for most homeowners.

With a price tag well under $100, Black+Decker’s handheld combination leaf blower-mulcher is an affordable and appealing one-stop shop. It’s powerful enough in blower mode to handle medium-sized yards, with enough power to move clumps of wet grass or even stray pieces of mulch. In mulcher mode, it boasts a respectable 10:1 mulching ratio with a 1.5 bushel bag. Last, but not least, it only weighs 8.1 pounds, so it is easier to handle than most gas-powered models.

Like our top pick, Black+Decker combines three essential lawn tools, but offers them at a price that should appeal to folks who only plan to clear their lawn once or twice a year. Just keep in mind that it’s powered by a 50-foot extension cord, which limits its range.

A simple and affordable design makes the Worx WG430 a valuable sidekick for the fall. This corded electric stationary mulcher runs off a 13 amp, 2 horsepower motor that can chew through up to 53 gallons of leaves per minute with an impressive 11:1 mulching ratio. However, it uses a flexible line instead of a metal impeller to shred leaves, which you will occasionally need to replace.

Weighing in at 20 pounds, it isn’t all that heavy and can be assembled without tools for a relatively hassle-free set up when you need it. When it's time to mulch, you can mount disposable garbage bags to pick up your mulch, cutting down on cleanup. The WG430 keeps things simple, making it an excellent choice for households with light-to-moderate leaf clearing demands.

If you want to skip the raking or leaf blowing and cut right to mulching, the Troy-Bilt CSV060B is a heavy-duty, gas-powered walk-behind lawn vacuum with the power to suck up all the leaves and twigs you put in front of it. With a two-foot opening, you can clear a fairly broad swath with each pass, and shreds leaves fine–8:1 ratio–to pack as much mulch as possible in its two-bushel bag.

It also comes equipped with a seven-foot vacuum tube to help you reach leaves in corners or lodged in landscaping beds, where the vacuum can’t roll. For larger debris, there’s a built-in chipper chute that can chew through branches up to 1.5 inches in diameter.

The CSV060B’s large rear wheels keep their balance over uneven sections and up inclines, but it’s important to keep in mind that, unlike many lawn mowers, this machine is not self-propelled. Be prepared to push, especially if your yard has any large slopes.

If you want to cut the cord, the Ryobi Vac Attack leaf vacuum and mulcher is a great companion to your handy rake or leaf blower. While it has a very short run time–just 12 minutes–it boasts a sky high 16:1 mulch ratio so you should be able to gather up and shred a huge pile of leaves in that time. And your clipping will either make for ultra-fine compost or an easy trash pickup.

I also love that the mulcher comes equipped with wheels at the end of the intake tube, which allows you to roll it along the ground, which is much easier on your back than other handheld models. As part of Ryobi’s “Whisper Series,” it features an internal foam lining to minimize how much noise it makes. While most mulchers run at around 65 decibels, Ryobi’s mulcher operates at 57 decibels. This is a small option for cleaning up lighter loads, and works best if you pair it with a blower, but it’s a fine choice if you care about the quality of your compost.

If this is your choice, you may also want consider having an extra battery on hand to slide in when the first battery runs out of juice.

This sturdy stationary electric leaf mulcher gives you the most shredding power you’ll find this side of a wood chipper, thanks to its powerful 15-amp motor. It will shred your leaves fine, with a compost-grade 13:1 mulching ratio, and can handle sticks up to a 1/2-inch thick. A wide mouth on the hopper makes loading armloads of leaves easy, and it comes with a large 50-gallon capacity mulching bag, so you can effectively haul each load.

The Landworks leaf shredder is constructed with a steel housing and frame, so it will hold up longer than smaller stationary leaf shredders with plastic parts. That also means it weighs close to 50 pounds, though: Even with two large wheels, its mobility is far more limited than the Worx WG430, which is why we only recommend this for folks with large properties with lots of trees.

If you routinely find your lawn carpeted with a thick layer of yellow, red, and orange each fall, then you may need something more powerful than a conventional mulcher can offer. This chipper/mulcher from DK2 has a powerful 7 horsepower engine that produces a sky-high 20:1 mulch ratio, breaking down leaves to fine particles for compost.

As a wood chipper, it chews through brush and branches up to 3 inches in diameter, so it’s also a good all-around machine for breaking down yard waste. You can switch between mulching and chipping in seconds by simply pulling out or inserting a metal gate. Though it looks more like an industrial wood chipper than something the average homeowner might own, it stands out for mulching because it features a vacuum attachment, so you can suck up nearby piles of leaves, rather than stuffing them down the chipper chute.

Despite its large size and heft, the DK2 is surprisingly mobile thanks to a reversible hitch that allows you to wheel the chipper around from behind or attach it to the back of an ATV or lawn tractor for towing.

This Worx Trivac mulcher/blower/vacuum combo sets itself apart from many of the handheld combos out there with a well-designed leaf collection system. With the Trivac, you can choose to collect your shredded leaves in a detachable collection bag, as you would with other mulcher/blower combos, or attach a 16-foot hose and send the mulch to a 60 gallon waste can. The second option allows you to work for longer without emptying out the mulcher mid-job, and allows you to dump the mulch directly into a garbage bag if you’re putting it out on the curb.

Sure, the WG524 Trivac’s corded design limits its range. But, it’s more affordable than battery-powered handheld leaf mulchers, and you don’t have to worry about running out of juice before the job is done.