Fall leaves- do you rake them up, or just leave 'em ? Pros & Cons : )

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
cherylpamala66's thread about fall got me thinking about raking up Fall leaves. I follow my dad's philosophy- let whoever brought them, take them away. I don't rake up leaves. In the Spring, they're gone. My neighbor across the street wears out a couple of rakes a year.
Do you rake 'em up, or leave 'em there?
Pros & Cons
 

I rake them up in the spots they gather like corners up against the house, under bushes, etc.
DH does the lawn with a sweeper on the mower and I burn them while he's picking up.
We only pick up what we're going to burn that day so we don't have giant piles of damp leaves around. Been there done that.
 
We live in a forest of oak, elm, etc., trees. so every Fall we have ton's of leaves. I regularly blow them away from the house, as they collect. Then, I mulch most of them up with the riding mower, about once a week. They collect in the ditch along our gravel road, so I burn the ditch, so they don't clog up the culvert under our driveway. I can usually count on several hours of work every Nov/December.
 
I have my gardener rake/blow them up. I've got 2 big green containers for the lawn clippings and leaves and we sometimes borrow my neighbor's green can too. I have so many leaves. That's just in the back yard.

It's pretty much a jungle out there now, I'm long overdue for my gardener to come.
 
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Leaf season has always been work for me...for years I'd mow them up into piles, tie an oblong tarp to mower, rank them onto tarp and haul off into the pasture and dump...now I mulch them with the mower as long as I can, but there will be piles left up against the yard fence or corners that my yard helpers will have to blow out or rake out at some point.
 
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We blow them into the forest which we own also. We used to mulch them with the mower and add it to our compost but we have enough things to add to our compost already so stopped.

At our old property, we used to rake all the leaves and burn them. We would have a fire for days but this property is 25 times the size of our last property so we blow them away. The blower is loud though.
 
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I remove the ones that fall on the roof and then mulch or burn the piles that creates. Other than that I leave them alone. I live in the middle of a wooded area.
 
Traded 8 acres of country living with 800 ft. tree lined drive way & trees scattered
throughout the property that had weeks of raking, for no trees & some cactus. Didn't really have that in mind when looking for less work in retirement it just worked out that way.

I still laugh when I see Christmas lights strung over cactus, just isn't the same.
 
hawkdon said:
I used to have them raked and hauled away, but last two years have stopped it...just too many leaves which means pricier and
pricier to have it done...so mowing guy just runs over the 2 or 3
times...thats enuff for me now...
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We've got a guy who comes and takes your bags of leaves for free, hauls 'em to his mulch farm, and apparently makes a decent living selling his mulch. He only charges if you want him to rake and bag 'em for you. My neighbor said the guy bathes all the leaves in a big pond on his property with something in it that kills all the bugs and larva, but it isn't a chemical insecticide. That way he can label it organic and garden-safe.

The city takes 'em for free, too, and sells 'em to a mulch and potting soil manufacturer.

There's a lot of trees here but my yards aren't very big. I have a mulching mower, a mulch barrel, and a neighbor kid who helps out once every week or two. I've always liked doing yard work, and I'll do for as long as I can (tolerate the pain it causes).
 
When you say you mulch them with the mower, do you mean you use a special attachment, or that you just run over them with the mower just like it was grass?
 
I vacuum up the leaves, smaller sticks, pine needles, pine cones and acorns with my mower bagger. I have a mulch pile on the edge of my lawn. After the first good cleanup, I use the blower to send the leaves into the woods. This year I will also dethatch. Then just before it snows, I will overseed.
Since retiring, it's an enjoyable challenge.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
cherylpamala66's thread about fall got me thinking about raking up Fall leaves. I follow my dad's philosophy- let whoever brought them, take them away. I don't rake up leaves. In the Spring, they're gone. My neighbor across the street wears out a couple of rakes a year.
Do you rake 'em up, or leave 'em there?
Pros & Conshi
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fuzzybuddy said:
Hi: fuzzybuddy and everyone: I used to rake or sweep where we live we get a lot of wind in the country where we are and near the mountains love it here. On the calm days I sweep my parents front porch so it's neat. It's windy I just leave it and wait, loll :) leaves are pretty I kind of like watching them blow around in the wind. Kind of remindes me of Peanus Linus and the leave pile, lol!
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LOL 1.jpg
 
I rake them...I hate the job so much, which is why I had the holly tree chopped down this summer because it shed leaves all year round not just autumn and the bigger it got the worse the leaf fall... it was getting to the stage where the whole lawn was being covered overnight...

The other trees shed as much as that ...
 
I use the 2-cycle blower to get them away from the fence and other areas where they're trapped. Then I have a lawn vacuum that attaches to my zero-turn mower, which chops 'em up. Very limited raking. I wind up doing the leaves about 5 times a season, about 6 lawn-sized bags worth each time. Last year, the season didn't end until mid-December. Damned trees like to hold onto their leaves WAAAAY beyond my comfort zone.

Have I said today that I hate yard work?
 
I rake the worst areas and compost what I can. The trees are outwith my garden so there's not much I can do with them. Mrs. L would like to see some of them chopped down, or at least thinned out - not so much because of the leaves, but because of the shade .
 
HermitHogan said:
We don't have any trees in the backyard and just one in the front yard that leans over into the neighbor's yard, so he cleans them up. Maybe that's why he glares at me when he sees me. :ROFLMAO:
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You're a very smart cookie. I've always maintained that a 4x8 section of lawn is big enough for dogs to do their business on. Everything else is overkill. (There's a reason for concrete or flagstones, even gravel.) Trees are nice, but ya gotta get the trees that are like dogs -- the kind that don't shed. And DON'T plant them too close to the house. That's just plain stupid, especially when those trees begin to climb up the walls of your house and tickle the eaves.
 

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