Leaves on a lawn is a first-world problem. I really couldn’t care less.
On my last day of mowing for the year, I’ll mow over the leaves on the grass. But many more fall after that. Who cares…
I just suck them up on the last mow of the year. They come from the next door neighbor’s maple anyway. I’ve decided to let the bottom half of my terraced back yard go feral and thats where the elm shrub is growing.
I am so glad there is no hellish obnox ass where I live. When I originally bought the house some decades ago, had to sign some neighborhood covenants that were set to expire in a few years.
Were I to buy a new house, well nm, no realtor would sign off on that deal with me
Wanted to admit the error of my initial post.
Many trees in our area have been extremely slow to drop their leaves. Our town’s final yardwaste/leaf pickup was the first week of Dec. I think every neighbor did a pretty good job of cleaning things up before that last pickup.
Today, my - and my neighbors’ - lawn is COVERED by leaves, due largely to a huge red oak that did not drop its leaves until after that final pickup. Even tho it is 60 degrees today, I’m not going to bring my mower back out to mulch them. They can wait until spring.
I do not remember this being the situation in previous years.
I hope I remember this next year, so I’ll be less uptight about my neighbors’ choices. :o
No leaves on the ground, up here in conifer country. When we lived down near the coast in a yard full of dogs and surrounded by oaks, bays, and figs, I regularly raked and mulched the rich leaf+dogshit bounty. Great fertilizer.
We have juniper trees in AZ.
~VOW
Juniper-piñon woodlands don’t have much debris. It’s even better in the creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) zone; their root-emitted phytotoxins thin-out competitors for scarce water, and ants carry off most of what’s left.
A small garden lay behind my cinderblock shack in 29 Palms. I couldn’t rake up enough local debris to mulch it - had to buy damp sawdust. The wild tobacco and datura plants didn’t need mulching, which saved my budget.
I cannot tell if the OP is serious or if this is parody.
As parody it is brilliant: 10/10 for this grumpy boomer impression.
I pick up my leaves with my mulching tractor and sweeper and leave them neatly near the road when I know the Township is going to pickup up said leaves. My yard is far from perfect and but the oak leaves are tough on the grass, clover & weeds and I would rather keep the lawn than just have dirt.
If I lived in a neat little neighborhood, I’m sure I would be that neighbor that doesn’t care for the lawn enough. Never water, never weed, won’t use chemicals (except Poison ivy killer when I see poison ivy, but that is in trees and shrubs.) Clearly I am a terrible person.
Worse yet, I like dandelions and clover. Clover gives the deer something nutritious to eat. Great stuff, grass is actually kind of dumb in most areas. Clover is generally better. My yard has wild violets and strawberries. Loads of weeds and maybe 33% clover. What sick person ever decided clover was a weed? That’s what I would like to know.
Probably somebody selling lawn fertilizer. Clover’s a nitrogen fixer; if you’ve got enough of it in the lawn, there’s no need to apply any.
I won’t.
They’re leaves. I don’t see what the big deal is.
I’m too lazy. Has anyone ever tried to use a blower/vacuum to suck up their leaves? Did it work?
Also, what does “The final leaf pick-up by the city” mean?
Blowers work well if the leaves are not wet and not too heavy. Large oak trees among some others tend to defeat blowers. The vacuums are good for light jobs but sweepersdo a pretty good job.
Last pick up of leaves until the spring is what it usually means. Many towns you rake/sweep/blow your leaves to the curb for township pickup.
Not sure if what’s irking the OP is the fact that there are two seemingly outliers who have not made an effort like everyone else on the street, or if it’s because their errant leaves are blowing onto his property. If the first, that seems kind of judgy. As if he thinks they’re of inferior moral character or something. If the later, I can kind of relate. I have a courtyard type patio and on on the one section that is separated from my neighbor by only a chain link fence, their 2 ft of leaves continually blow into my yard. I don’t care about leaves on my front yard or sidewalk or driveway, but I would like not to have my entire patio covered in them. I sweep regularly throughout the year; heck I enjoy it. But once fall comes it’s an unwinnable battle.
Also, what does this have to do with being a Boomer? Or maybe that depends on the answer to my first question.
Not sure if what’s irking the OP is the fact that there are two seemingly outliers who have made an effort like everyone else on the street, or if it’s because their errant leaves are blowing onto his property. If the first, that seems kind of judgy. As if he thinks they’re of inferior moral character or something. If the later, I can kind of relate. I have a courtyard type patio and on on the one section that is separated from my neighbor by only a chain link fence, their 2 ft of leaves continually blow into my yard. I don’t care about leaves on my from yard or sidewalk or driveway, but I would like not to have my entire patio covered in them. I sweep regularly throughout the year; heck I enjoy it. But once fall comes it’s an unwinnable battle.
Also, what does this have to do with being a Boomer? Or maybe that depends on the answer to my first question.
I’d be happier with neighbors’ leaves blowing over onto my lawn than with having to listen to the Leafblower Armies try to cope with them.
About a quarter-mile away there are uptight neighborhoods where landscape services have been hired to laboriously pile up leaves with noisy leafblowers, then remove them. This takes hours each time, and the services come back over and over again to do the same thing. This year the loud droning continued well into December.
People, if you go over the leaves on at least a weekly basis with a mulching mower, it chops them up nicely and feeds your lawn. It’s also a lot quicker and causes much less noise pollution.
FYI: Mulched oak leaves kill lawns. Maples are iffy. Fruit trees, birches, dogwoods, elms do mulch well and feed the lawn. I generally do only 1 or 2 leaf pickups and never worry about being 100% but I have 3 oaks and 4 maples and these need to be removed or come spring I have mud rather than lawn.
I look forward to a small yard with small trees but currently I have 2 acres with many mature trees.
What’s the basis for saying this?
“Mulching oak leaves is fine — it doesn’t make the soil acidic. And even if it does, so what? Soil in many home landscapes tends to be alkaline, so a little acidity doesn’t hurt. But an MSU study determined that mulched oak leaves, once broken down, are pH neutral. The only drawback is that oak leaves take longer to break down than maples, aspens, and many other leaves. By mid-May, even an inch layer oak leaves will have disappeared into the soil.”
I also value leaves (chopped or not) as mulch for front yard perennial and shrub beds.
TO the guy who fired up the gas leaf blower at 8AM on Boxing Day - BLow Me!
We had to cut down our red oak that died very fast from oak wilt, i wonder if those leaves if left on the ground will help spread the contagion?
Yes, blowers suck, and suckers . . .blow(?):mad:
Hell, I have a leaf blower / vacuum and I can barely stand to use it, even with my carpet of leaves. When I do it will be once, at a civilized hour.
I can’t use a blower, since I have a small yard and nowhere to blow them. I thought by now society would have invented a small portable leaf vacuum that I could just use to suck up the leaves right into a bag.