It’s much easier to clean up pine needles assuming they have fallen versus months after the fact. If you have access to a blower, you can blow them into a pile, or use a rake and gently rake across all your plants and decorative rocks.
If the volume of pine needles in your yard is huge. You should take a look at the Flagstaff Bulk pick up Collection schedule. Many folks that do their own clean up will rake up pine needles a week or two before their scheduled pick up. You’ll see many homes with garbage bags filled up with pine needles anywhere from 20 to 100 bags along the curb for their property. With our service we pick up all the pine needles and haul them way using burlap bags. We prefer not to use plastic bags for environmental reasons. We are reusing material that bio-degrades and it is much more efficient for us to place the pine needles on burlap bags rather than to stuff them into dozens and dozens of garbage bags.