# Two awesome tools for native plant gardens in San Diego

1. Electric Leaf Vacuum / Leaf Blower

These things are super useful for almost anyone. If you have
deciduous trees, then these will vacuum them up, chop them
into little pieces, and put them in a big bag. Then you can
throw them on a compost heap, or use them as mulch.

Leaf vacuums have adjustable suction, so you could probably
find a setting that's strong enough to pick up a lot of
leaves, but weak enough not to pick up gravel.

The leaf blower function is really nice for cleaning all
sorts of stuff of of concrete. Sometimes a broom just
doesn't work that well (think tight spaces).

2. Electric Wood Chipper / Mulcher

These are like small versions of the big wood chippers they
use with tree branches. If you grow any native sages, then
you'll probably find that you have a lot of clippings in
Fall or Winter.

Our native sages look great for the first year or two and
then they start loosing leaves lower down and they don't
look so great. The fix for this is to cut them back pretty
aggressively every year or two. Roses are like that too.
This means you end up with lots of sticks and small
branches.

If you throw these into a small wood chipper/mulcher, then
it'll spit out little pieces that you can compost or use as
mulch. And you can't have too much mulch! ;-) 

Otherwise, you'll have to put them in your green curb-side
container and go pick up mulch from the Miramar landfill
instead. That mulch is a good deal, but it's sort of a pain
in the but to drive all the way down there; especially if
you don't have a pickup truck.