The Drew&Cole Leaf Chief, a manual leaf and grass collector, is now available for £68.40 on Yimbly as part of its Black Friday sale, down from its usual £99.99 price. In a hands-on test, the device picked up the majority of leaves on a lawn within 10 minutes of use.
The gadget works by being pushed up and down the garden, with built-in plastic rakes drawing fallen leaves into an included 100L detachable nylon collection bag. It requires no power, meaning no running costs compared to a traditional leaf blower. According to Drew&Cole, 291 specially-designed bristles reach out and grab leaves, scooping them into the attached bag for “efficient, hassle-free cleaning”.
How the deal works
The Leaf Chief is reduced from £99.99 to £75.99 on Yimbly, an online marketplace owned by Reach plc, the parent company of this site. An additional 10% off is available with discount code AUTUMN10, bringing the price to £68.40.
The product arrives with some assembly required, and the test found it was up and running within around 15 minutes of unboxing. However, the instruction booklet could be improved with better quality images, as the existing ones are fairly grainy and small, and one of the sets of screws seemed to be numbered incorrectly.
Performance on the lawn
In testing, operation was simple: just push the Leaf Chief up and down the garden and watch as it collects fallen leaves. The height of the handlebar can be adjusted between a couple of settings, which proved handy when different users took turns. The device also features an adjustable sweeping height, controlled with a simple dial, so gardeners can customise the raking height to suit the terrain and leaf coverage.
One caveat noted was that the quality of pickup appears to struggle on uneven sections of the lawn, which might require more experimentation with the various height settings of the collection head to get optimal results on bumpy ground. After 10 minutes of use, the majority of leaves were picked up, enough to ensure they don’t suffocate the lawn over winter.
Cleanup and storage
Tidying up after use was fairly straightforward, as the collection bag clips smoothly on and off the Leaf Chief for easy transfer to a garden waste bin or compost heap. When not in use, the device can be stored on a garage wall with the included wall storage bracket, though this was not tested as the accompanying wall plugs were too deep for a garden shed.
The test concluded that the Leaf Chief is a simple but effective design that does one job really well, with the bonus of using no power, so users don’t need to worry about adding to energy bills. The device is available during Yimbly’s Black Friday Sale for £68.40 with code AUTUMN10.
