North Coast Gardening

Clarington Forge Wizard Rubber Rake: a Review

“A rubber rake? Seriously?”

That was Amy’s reaction when we opened the carton of English gardening tools from Clarington Forge.

My reaction?

“YES!!! IT’S A RUBBER RAKE!!!”

I’d never seen a rubber rake before, but I was immediately taken with the idea.

First off, normal metal rakes are LOUD. I remember as a teen getting woken up on a long weekend by an elderly neighbor raking his sidewalk at 6 am with a normal metal rake. SCREEEEEK. SKREEEEEEEEEKKK. SCREEEEEK. My ears are bleeding just thinking of it.

Please, don’t be that person. Get a rubber rake.

The other exciting thing I found it good for was raking out all the scrungy brown leaves from ornamental grasses, particularly Blue Oat Grass. Because the Wizard Rubber Rake is soft enough not to damage the good leaves, I found I could just rake to my heart’s content, and the texture of the rubber grabbed onto the yucky leaves while leaving the fresh ones. Score!

The rubber tines seemed to hold up very well to use and didn’t show any wear, but they do sell replaceable tines just in case.

Amy and I tried it out in this video and compared it to my normal rake:

Unimpressed with my loud rake: Yay! A rake that allows your neighborhood layabouts to sleep in!
Amy grouchy about the old-style rake Amy with the Clarington rubber rake

We also got to test out some cool gardening spades:

Want to win one? Of course you do!

Amy’s got a Rabbiting Spade to give away to one lucky Garden Rant reader, and I’ve got a Wizard Rubber Rake to give away!

If you want to win the Wizard Rubber Rake, just leave a comment here and I’ll select one lucky winner using Random.org next Wednesday. (U.S. and Canada only.)

EDIT: Becky V is the winner. Congrats, Becky – enjoy your new rake!

Genevieve

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39 responses to “Clarington Forge Wizard Rubber Rake: a Review”

  1. The rubber rake looks rad! I’d love to have one even though I don’t have a sidewalk and neighbors to wake up. I do have plants in the border I don’t want to harm. Great videos!

  3. I don’t know anyone who uses a metal rake on concrete, pavement, stone, or any other hard surface. Why are you making such a comparison?

    • TC – because I DO know people who use metal rakes on hard surfaces – many pros, lawn care companies, and homeowners. I’m not talking an iron bow rake, but a metal leaf rake. It’s easier to get stuff off sidewalks when they’re wet when using a rake than a broom. The broom doesn’t grab much of anything when it’s wet; a rake does. I wouldn’t use a metal rake on nice stonework or colored concrete, but it doesn’t seem to harm the sidewalks around here!

      Maybe it’s a climactic difference between us. Here, it rains six months of the year. Any leaf removal we do from sidewalks happens when the sidewalk is wet. I don’t use blowers, so a rake’s a better option than an ineffective broom. And I really like that the rubber one doesn’t risk irritating people from the noise.

      • I understand. I keep forgetting that not everyone lives where grass rules. (Ooops, I think I just gave away the fact that I have a big yard. I hope y’all ain’t anti-lawn.)

  4. What’s not to love about rubber tines that are replaceable on a rake ?
    That’s just so positively progressive green thinking !
    My humble slice of paradise grows under a heavy canopy of deciduous black oak trees.
    Inexpensive gravel paths wind in and out of beds of bananas, savory succulents, bromeliads and other planterly earthly delights.
    I love my crunchy gravel paths. As a single woman I appreciate the noisy crunch they make especially at night time. They are my Zen burglar alarm.
    But raking the copious amount of oak leaves off the gravel paths can be a loud affair.
    The scratchy noise of the metal rake mashes my zen like meditative mellow , especially when I’m in the zone.
    A rubber tined rake would be my Zen master tool of choice when doing my monk impression of raking the gravel. Ommmmmmmm.

  5. I have what I can only call a short-tined rubber “broom” that I use in the greenhouse. It has the advantage over a regular broom in that it doesn’t throw the dust into the air, and it is quiet. I’d love to try the rubber “rake.”

  6. what a brilliant idea! the broom does not work for wet leaves, and the rake is so loud!! if i don’t win i will probably buy one anyway! : ) yay! (great ‘before and after’ shot of amy with the rakes…haha!)

  7. Y’all had way too much fun making the video! I’d love to have a rubber-tined rake since we’re always having to rake pine straw from our driveway and walkways. Thanks for the chance!

  8. Metal tines on the brick patio give me the heebee jeebies as do fingernails on a chalkboard or my teeth scraping along the flat wooden spoon that comes with a cup of ice scream (oops! meant ice cream). A rubber rake will be so nice to come home to, so nice to the masonry. Brilliant.

    • Kathleen, I couldn’t agree more. Every time my employees use the metal rake on something noisy I grit my teeth. I think I am going to have to ask Clarington Forge about a bulk discount on their rubber rakes.

  9. That rake is enough for me to acquire a rubber fetish! Well, really, I’m a rake collector. I’ve got 5-6 each for specific tasks…it all started when my father bought a thatching rake for the lawn…no mere rake that! I want me the rubber one!

    • Wow, Susan!! Have I missed your blog post detailing what each rake does? Because really, inquiring minds want to know and all… Very cool. (I have four types now… so I am getting to your level of collector-ish-ness.)

  14. Loved the videos – including the original cocktail hour! I’m most impressed by the way it grooms grasses. THAT was enough to sell me, but I was also intrigued by what you said on the cocktail video about it being a good option for ground cover. My entire garden is plants and ground cover and it’s impossible to rake the leaves without traumatizing the plants below. How is the rubber better? It grips without digging as deep?

    P.S. If I win the rake, will you autograph it for me?

    • Susan – YES, it is so good on groundcover. I just used it on some Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, a Chamomile lawn, and some Blue Star Creeper and it worked brilliantly. Effective yet not damaging – puts just the right amount of pressure to grab the leaves and not tear stems or roots. I think the “lawn alternatives” movement may have just found a new spokes-tool!

      And yes my dear, if you win I will TOTALLY autograph it, in the same way I marked my pruners when I worked at a nursery. “Gen the Great”. No, I don’t have self-esteem issues, why do you ask? 🙂

      Tongue firmly in cheek,
      Gen

  15. Well, I do have sidewalk, plus a driveway, but none of the neighbors seem to mind the screeEEEE ! of the metal rake as I remove the leaves, etc. Indeed, they seem downright okay with it since to them it might mean someone else is raking their leaves (I scavenge fallen leaves from the neighbors for my compost & mulch operations).

    But we did just put in a bunch of native grasses in part of our school garden, not realizing that the microclimate blows fallen leaves straight into that section. It would be nice to use this to keep the new plantings looking neat, and to help us rake the leaves into the compost.

  16. The rubber rake looks like it would be great. I have a rubber broom that is similar and my neighbors laughed at me and told me to get a real broom until they seen it work and they wanted one. I think that it would be great! I’ve used that broom to sweep leaves out of my planting beds in the Spring and it works great. I think that I would really love having a bigger version that is really a rake for the rest of the yard.

  17. I should have been there scratching my fingernails on the chalkboard too. Yikes! I can’t stand wire rakes on my patio. I bet the rubber one works wonders on wet leaves on a wet patio too…I hope.

  18. pure genius! my neighbors and my husband would be ever so grateful- though i’ll take even the screech of a a metal rake over the sound of a gas blower any day!

  19. I will be 75 next birthday, I have some special garden tools a stainless steel fork and spade, 35 year old pair of lopping shears, two great hand pruners that are over 50 years old. A marvelous small heavy duty plastic cart that moves the heaviest pots imaginable. But never in my dreams would I have thought of a rubber rake. It sounds like a wonderful tool to keep and enjoy for a lifetime. I hope I will be lucky enough to win one.

  20. The flexible tines look like they’re set together more closely than on regular rakes, which would make them ideal for raking up the thousands of king palm seeds that drop amid my shallow-rooted camellias, azaleas and other plants under the palms. And it would make cleanup on my tiled patio so much more pleasant and quiet.

  22. I bet this would work great raking my neighbor’s ash leaves out of my garden. Do they make a shrub rake version? with a 1/2 width head?
    Thanks for the info!

  24. Looks like a great idea to me. I hate having sharp metal tools in the garden because I have young children at home and they’re always playing with everything.

  25. The rubber rake sounds so great! I have lots of concrete sidewalks and lots of leaves so I could so use it! How unique it sounds.

  28. Cool rake. It reminds me of those rubber brooms they advertise on tv sometimes. The ones that magically pick up pet hair through static. Good way of not scratching your driveway, walkway, brick, etc.

  29. This won’t be an everyday use tool for me but I absolutely must have one!

    What a great niche tool. Plastic rakes, steel tine rakes, and pushbrooms all have their place and sometimes a blower complicates more than it accomplishes. I trust this rake will be the solution to many akward worksite clean-up situations. Even though limited use should prolong service life the replaceable tines make this a solid investment for me.

    I literally can’t wait for one of my landscape buddies to show up on a site with this tool in play. Instant tool envy guaranteed.

  30. I must try one of these. I live in East wind coming down Columbia gorge area, neighbor East of me has 82 full size maples. Nuf said.

  31. Maybe I need a class in raking because I seem to bend and twist the metal tines on my rake and have to replace the whole rake every year almost. When I saw this rake I actually got excited about being able to replace the working end-brilliant!

  32. I a so pleased that these rakes still exist! I am worried about my old rake, purchased at the early Smith and Hawken when they sold tools. This rake is so much kinder to my native ground covers that don’t like sitting under a mat of gooy leaves in the winter.