# Why rake leaves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 7, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511 "2004-11-07T17:56:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511/21 "2004-11-08T08:42:58Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > [Savanahs](http://www.getsets.com/library/images/savanah.jpg) don’t have lush, low growing evenly green grass. They have clumps of scruby grasses growing in patches, other plants in between the grass clumps with trees growing generally long paces apart. Some do, some don’t there is an immense variety to savnnas and some of them are indeed like parkland with fairly closely spaced trees and a well develeloped lush, low-cropped, evenly green lawn that any homeowner would envy. Others are the sparsely treed tussock grasslands you describe. It all depends on where you are talking about. That isn’t the point of course. the point is that natural grasslands do indeed have trees. Since the initail comment that they don’t was anitpick in itself I thought it fair to make another nitpick that they do. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511/22 "2004-11-08T14:42:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Oak leaves contain considerable amounts of tannic acid. Why do you think they are not acidic? Rutgers county extension reported on their findings, and they concluded that oak leaves from white, pin and red oak do not return acidity to the soil and no adjustment needs to be made when using leaves for mulch or compost. The presence of an acidic ingredient does not make the entire entity acidic. I would cite the article, but extension offices aren’t known for world class web sites. You’ll have to go with me on this one. I am an organic gardener, and was terribly worried about adding a forests worth of oak leaves to my compost. After looking into it, I realized I had almost limitless balanced compost and mulching components in oak leaves. I always “knew” they were acidic, but it never proved to be true. The black compost I get from oak leaves is incredible, and my pH balance-loving lawn is happy with the oak compost, and even muched up leaves. After about eight years, the pH level in the lawn hasn’t budged. I have oak leaves half way up my shins right now. Some will be composted, some muclhed as part of mowing. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511/23 "2004-11-08T14:56:37Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > Rutgers county extension reported on their findings, and they concluded that oak leaves from white, pin and red oak do not return acidity to the soil and no adjustment needs to be made when using leaves for mulch or compost. The presence of an acidic ingredient does not make the entire entity acidic. > > I would cite the article, but extension offices aren’t known for world class web sites. > > You’ll have to go with me on this one. I am an organic gardener, and was terribly worried about adding a forests worth of oak leaves to my compost. After looking into it, I realized I had almost limitless balanced compost and mulching components in oak leaves. > > I always “knew” they were acidic, but it never proved to be true. The black compost I get from oak leaves is incredible, and my pH balance-loving lawn is happy with the oak compost, and even muched up leaves. After about eight years, the pH level in the lawn hasn’t budged. I have oak leaves half way up my shins right now. Some will be composted, some muclhed as part of mowing. OK, that’s interesting. Given the amount of tannins in oak leaves, I would also have assumed they would have produced acidic mulch. Some other factor must counterbalance it somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511/24 "2004-11-08T15:49:39Z")
Well, the best site I could find is here. Interesting article on handling leaves. If you have sandy soil and it doesn’t have good buffering capacity, it says after many years of mulching in oak leaves yould could affect soil acidity, which is quickly corrected with lime. The benefits are great, and the acidity of oak leaves can pile up after many years in a sandy soil without alot of organic activity. ---
**Author:** ![Survey1215](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Survey1215](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Survey1215)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511/25 "2004-11-08T16:45:04Z")
We get the leaves out of our yard largely so I don’t feel like a slacker (i have totally turned into my father, the Yard Commando - yikes). We have two older pin oaks and they drop a ton of leaves, enough to completely blanket our front and back. Also, my experience has always been that leaving the leaves on the yard over the winter causes grass troubles the following fall. I have no cite or stats to back that up - it is merely from my personal experience. > [@Cooper](#): > > I use a leaf hog I bought for $50 to vacuum much of the leaves (I only have a lot in the back yard) and mulch-mow the rest. It takes me about an hour and half to do the backyard, and I think its a lot easier than raking or even using a leaf blower. Also it mulches the leaves into a bag so I can dispose of all my leaves for the year in one lawn and leaf bag. i’m a recent LeafHog convert. The mulching dealie is sweet, as it has taken our typical 12 bags of leaves per raking session down to 3 bags/mulch per blowing/sucking session. There’s the added bonus of getting to use words like ‘blowing’ and ‘sucking’ in a SDMB post w/o feeling dirty. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-rake-leaves/273511.md?page=1)