Neighbors won’t thank you, but an electric blower/vacuum will clumsily do the job.

So how did I end up with an electric leaf blower that doubles as a vacuum? Blame it on falling leaves.

The leaves that are beginning to rain down from deciduous trees should be cherished--collected and hoarded, in compost piles or spread as a mulch onto garden beds. They decompose quickly and add greatly to a soil’s tilth and fertility.

Not all leaves, however, are so cooperative, especially those from broadleaf evergreens.

Take the seemingly indestructible leaves--the Styrofoam cups of the plant world--from Magnolia grandiflora, my designated city street tree. The “Sunset Western Garden Book” warns “its big, hard, plasticlike leaves and other litter constantly fall from May though September.” But here it is December, and I’m still raking up leaves that I’m forced to put in the green recycling barrel because they simply do not decompose left as is.

This has become tedious and frustrating, which is why I have been intrigued by the ads for “blower/vacs”-- leaf blowers that also vacuum and shred leaves. Would one of these make short work of my big “plasticlike” magnolia leaves, grinding them into bite-size pieces so that I could compost them?

I hastily point out (before the letters start pouring in) that I am not a fan of gasoline-powered leaf blowers and, though I can see why commercial gardeners value them so, would never recommend one for home garden use because they are so noisy and raise clouds of dust.

But electric blowers are supposed to be quieter, and when I saw an electric blower/vac advertised for a reasonable price (about $70), I decided to give one a try. The ad read, “200 mph peak air velocity” and “10:1 mulch,” which meant that, once they were ground up, 10 bags of leaves could be compressed into one. That sounded like some serious grinding action--perfect for those bulky magnolia leaves.

I pictured myself strolling through the garden with a vacuum under my arm, as if I were cleaning the house.

However, when set up for vacuuming, with a fat suction tube and a bag to collect the leaves, the blower/vac was rather awkward to hold, which was not apparent in the photo on the box. My hat is off to the model in that photo for looking so poised while trying to hold this leaf-sucking contraption.

When I first flicked it on, to the high setting, I was also rather shocked at the noise this little electric machine made. It shrieked like a jet at takeoff, putting to shame the pitiful roar of my other power tools, even the circular saw and noisy shop vac. The low setting was quieter, but wearing OSHA-approved earplugs is a good idea.

I could not simply walk around the yard vacuuming up loose leaves, as I had imagined, but had to rake or blow them into a pile, then suction them up.

But the blower/vac did suck leaves, even big ones like the 6-inch magnolia leaves, vacuuming them up in a flash. I could hear them being shredded by the plastic turbine blades inside as the bag under my arm got fatter and heavier.

Mercifully it took only seconds and I had a bagful, which I took to the compost pile. It had, indeed, made bite-size pieces out of the magnolia leaves, which would compost nicely now, but at what cost to that Saturday’s peace and quiet?

To give the machine a fair evaluation, I tried it in several situations, including up on the roof, where the gutters were filled with leaves from a Tabebuia impetiginosa, or pink trumpet tree.

Part of the roof is almost flat, and leaves tend to just lie there, so I decided to use my new tool in its blower mode. I took off the suction tube, removed the bag and put on the blower tube. I also had to twist on a grill that keeps things from getting sucked into the air intake.

The blower quickly scattered all the leaves, only now I was on the roof so the shoppers at the mall a few blocks away could probably hear the roar. Usually it’s me complaining about noise from the mall, but I expected a call from mall management at any moment: “Could you please not run that infernal machine on weekends when our shoppers are trying to concentrate?”

To clean out the rain gutters, I took off the blower tube, unscrewed the grill, put the bag and the suction tube back on and tried sucking the leaves out of the gutters. I got a few, but most wouldn’t budge.

So, I took off the suction tube and the bag, put on the grill and blower tube, got briefly tangled in the extension cord, but easily blew all the leaves out of the gutter and onto my nice clean patio down below. I would have to think this through a little more thoroughly next time.

In the next few days, I tried blowing, vacuuming and shredding a variety of leaves and small fruit and the conclusion based on my experience is that these blower/vacs are a good idea that doesn’t quite pan out in practice. As a vacuum, anyway, they are not particularly easy to use, hold or store and only shred some kinds of leaves. The cord is a nuisance.

This said, I think I’ll hang on to the blower/vac, just to use as a mini-grinder for magnolia leaves. It did an impressive job on them, and it sure beats shelling out about $600 for a real compost grinder (and talk about noisy).

Also, after a particularly strong Santa Ana wind, I found that the vacuum made short work of those big windblown drifts of leaves. In that instance, I didn’t have to walk around dragging the cord and the machine wasn’t on for long. I just stood over the pile and sucked up the leaves. As advertised, the pile of ground-up leaves was considerably smaller than the original dune. So perhaps this tool is best used as an emergency vehicle, called upon only after the really big wind storms.

For general cleanup, I’ll return to my green metal Flexrake and broom. The big blower/vac is just too noisy, and I don’t want to become known as the noisiest weekend warrior in the neighborhood. I’m hoping no one figures out who was making all that racket last weekend.

In the Garden is published Thursdays. Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053; fax to (213) 237-4712; or e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.