In my previous home, I would use a normal lawn rake every spring to manually rake out the dead grass and debris that collected over the winter. I never dethatched the lawn. Just manually raked, then used some sort of turf builder/crab grass preventer with great results. The lawn was slightly less than half an acre total.

This is my first spring in our new home that has a much larger yard (one acre). Now that the yard is larger, and I'm not getting any younger, I'd like to find an attachment for my riding lawn mower, that will take the place of raking. I'd rather not dethatch, as the lawn doesn't look like it really needs it. I just want to find something that will rake up the grass. Will something like a Toro Lawn Sweeper Attachment that has brushes work? Are the brushes sufficient in general on a lawn sweeper to get the dead grass, or will I need to use a dethatcher first but on a gentle setting/height, then use a sweeper?

Thanks for your help and recommendations.

William

Last year I bought a Brinley Lawn Sweeper and Brinley Dethatcher. This year because my grass isn't as matted as it was last year (had a ton of snow mold last year), I plan on going over the lawn with the sweeper on a fairly low setting at least once, maybe twice. Then if I feel I need it, use the dethatcher on a high enough setting to just get the dead grass but not really "dethatch" and then go around with the sweeper again to pick everything up.

Right now I'm just waiting for snow in a few shady areas to melt and it's driving me nuts because its' taking its sweet time! :)