What is your leaf removal strategy?

[bdcolt45er]

I generally think it is best to wait until they are almost completely dropped.if a do it intermittently then it feels like I'm doing the same amount of work to cover the same area. I rake mine into the street and then mulch them with the mower, and then scope them up with a snow shovel.

 

[TennNole17]

 

[Greenway4Prez]

Wait for them all to come down, then blow/rake them out of landscaping beds, my playground area, deck/patio, etc. out into the lawn. After that, mulch them.

 

[Funky Bunch]

-Mulch them until there are too many to mulch.
-Check windfinder.com for a day with high winds
-blow to side of yard according to direction of wind
-watch the wind take them away

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[Colonoscopy]

Let them blow away

 

[bdcolt45er]

I've cut down 3 trees in the past couple years including a big one this year so my volume should be down.

 

[yescyam]

 

[The Tradition]

This.

 

[QChawks]

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

I just now them early and often to keep the volume down (and in case it snows a lot so you don’t have a wet moldy mess for a couple weeks.)

 

[dgordo]

My landscapers come every week and clean them up.

 

[OrlandNole]

My city has a leaf removal service. You just have to get them to the curb and a big vacuum truck comes and sucks them all up.

 

[bdcolt45er]

My city has a leaf removal service. You just have to get them to the curb and a big vacuum truck comes and sucks them all up.

We used to have that but they stopped it.

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

My city has a leaf removal service. You just have to get them to the curb and a big vacuum truck comes and sucks them all up.

There’s an OP’s mom joke in here somewhere

 

[SI_NYC]

I generally think it is best to wait until they are almost completely dropped.if a do it intermittently then it feels like I'm doing the same amount of work to cover the same area. I rake mine into the street and then mulch them with the mower, and then scope them up with a snow shovel.

I have 3 huge white oaks in the a pretty small yard. If I don't remove the leaves, it's too much to handle. The first removals are about getting rid of the mass. The last removal is about a spotless yard and more work goes into getting every ****ing leaf off the property. White oaks of course hold on to their leaves until early to mid December, the bastards.

In my twenties, I ran a gardening company and the motivation to getting every leaf comes from doing clean up in the spring for folks who didn't clean up any leaves in the fall. Wet leaves in the spring make the job 5 times worse than fall rake out.

 

[h-hawk]

 

[JMNSHO]

If you spend less time raking/blowing, you’ll spend less time mowing.

 

[Kelsers]

I generally think it is best to wait until they are almost completely dropped.if a do it intermittently then it feels like I'm doing the same amount of work to cover the same area. I rake mine into the street and then mulch them with the mower, and then scope them up with a snow shovel.

Mulch!

 

[HawkeyeShawn]

We hire it done. $100 and the service vacuums up the leaves.

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

Mulch, mulch, mulch, mother nature.

 

[NorthernHawkeye]

I miss the days where we could burn the leaves.

Too many freedom restricting people elected to office these days.

 

[The Tradition]

Mulch, mulch, mulch, mother nature.

Or make compost for the garden.

 

[TennNole17]

My city has a leaf removal service. You just have to get them to the curb and a big vacuum truck comes and sucks them all up.

This seems like a good investment for the city , to keep storm drains cleared no?

 

[The Tradition]

My city has a leaf removal service. You just have to get them to the curb and a big vacuum truck comes and sucks them all up.

Yeah, Raleigh has that. It's pretty cool.

 

[bagdropper]

C'mon wind!

I'm not really joking either. My yard lays out in a fashion where the normal late fall/pre-snow winter western winds tends to blow leaves out of my yard quite nicely.

 

[artradley]

When we lived in NJ the volume was way to high to mulch, which would be my first choice. My thought was wait until the trees are bare the. Spend a weekend getting them to the curb where the town would pick them up.

Mrs Radley felt we should spend the entirety of autumn outside catching every leaf before it touches the ground and place them in a hundred yard bags.

 

[InsaneHawkJJP]

Leave them be. I’ll grab a few wheelbarrows’s worth for the garden and a couple for the compost, but other than that, I leave them be for the bugs.

ETA: it helps that I live outside of town.

 

[Greenway4Prez]

Leave them be. I’ll grab a few wheelbarrows’s worth for the garden and a couple for the compost, but other than that, I leave them be for the bugs.

ETA: it helps that I live outside of town.

I’m not sure where you live, but it was a bad year for tree disease around CR/IC. Leaf spot on lilacs (which I have never seen before), hypoxylon canker on aspen, oak wilt, anthracnose, verticillium wilt on maple…leaving infected leaf debris undisturbed can lead to issues the following year. Not a certainty, just possible.

Just mowing the stuff and moving it around can be really helpful.

 

[Hendy hawk]

Way up here in NW Wisconsin at the summer home it's been so dry for a month now we had high winds with gusts up to 35 mph.
I'm surrounded by 2 acres of trees. Got up on the house roof with the blower and blew them off to the ground. Then blew them into the timber edges. All done. usually when we come back in the spring there are leaves all over that had not fallen when we left. Not this year.
Most my trees are bare. Leaving next Friday.

 

[DooBi]

Idk about out east but here in Northwest Iowa we are expecting very strong winds on Monday. Should clear the trees so I can mulch sometime next week.

 

[Joes Place]

I generally think it is best to wait until they are almost completely dropped.if a do it intermittently then it feels like I'm doing the same amount of work to cover the same area. I rake mine into the street and then mulch them with the mower, and then scope them up with a snow shovel.

Get them early and often (~1x/wk)

Use large rake to rake into small piles around the yard. Every 6-10 ft or so
Plug in the Toro leaf vac and vac them up.
Dump into compost bin.

Toro leaf vac pulverizes them into tiny pieces that reduce the volume by 3x of what they'd normally be.
I either send them off to the city compost, or sprinkle them around my yard as fertilizer after the leaf vac has chopped them into tiny bits.

Whole process for the front yard takes less than an hour.

Back yard is tougher because I have to leaf blow them into corners and eliminate any dog poops underneath as I'm going. But leaf blower separates out leaves from poop, and the leaf vac will not pick up mulch, sticks or dog poops. Only leaves.

 

[InsaneHawkJJP]

I’m not sure where you live, but it was a bad year for tree disease around CR/IC. Leaf spot on lilacs (which I have never seen before), hypoxylon canker on aspen, oak wilt, anthracnose, verticillium wilt on maple…leaving infected leaf debris undisturbed can lead to issues the following year. Not a certainty, just possible.

Just mowing the stuff and moving it around can be really helpful.

Yeah, I don’t know how forest’s have thrived for millennia without mowing or raking. Stupid nature!

 

[Joes Place]

Yeah, I don’t know how forest’s have thrived for millennia without mowing or raking.

Don't want my yard looking like the floor of a forest, though.

 

[TonyTheTiger.1865]

Well in Colorado we get 40 -50 mph winds in the winter so plan is to wait for spring and see what is still there

 

[Greenway4Prez]

Yeah, I don’t know how forest’s have thrived for millennia without mowing or raking. Stupid nature!

Next time try harder to miss the point.

I’m sure those are all trees original to the forest and none have died.

 

[InsaneHawkJJP]

Next time try harder to miss the point.

I’m sure those are all trees original to the forest and none have died.

Your point was silly.

Try harder to miss my point.

 

[FormerlyCyberCy]

I mulch them on the yard. Works great with a decent mulching mower.

 

[bdcolt45er]

I mulch them on the yard. Works great with a decent mulching mower.

I've tried mulching mine with a mower but the leaf cover is too heavy and my yard turns into mud.

 

[Uniformed_ReRe]

In Florida, we are fortunate that the Fall is also peak Hurricane Season. God "rakes" our leaves.

 

[yescyam]

I’m not sure where you live, but it was a bad year for tree disease around CR/IC. Leaf spot on lilacs (which I have never seen before), hypoxylon canker on aspen, oak wilt, anthracnose, verticillium wilt on maple…leaving infected leaf debris undisturbed can lead to issues the following year. Not a certainty, just possible.

Just mowing the stuff and moving it around can be really helpful.