75% Done With Leaves

[ProfessorGAC]

For the 4th time, I filled both yard waste bins, but this time I also filled 5 bags, with 5 lawnmower bags of leaves in each.
Unfortunately, the sugar maple still has 25% of its leaves, the big mulberry 50%, and the sycamore (over 50 feet tall & 40' wide), still has 90% of its leaves!
So, I still have 2 weeks to go. At least.
Love the weather, but this leaf thing...
BTW: all my yard stuff, including the mower is electric, not gas! So, at least it's reasonably quiet work.

[BOSSHOG]

1. I consider it good cardio

I’ve been bagging for weeks. Get up every morning and the tree has done it again. Any day now. Just n time to break out the shovels.

[irisblue]

2. My sugar maple has & will drop leaves on Jan 2.over 20+ years

Have the leaves fallen in December, mostly

[ProfessorGAC]

4. That's Late

Maybe I live farther north or something. Our sugar maple is always bare before Thanksgiving.
The pin oak & the ash drops leaves the soonest.
We also have to beech, a silver maple, and two trees near the big mulberry at the back of the yard, but I'm not sure what kind of trees they are. I looked it up once by leaf shape, but I forgot what I found out.
We have extensive landscaping (brick terraces) and we live on a corner. So, we don't have a back yard. We have a front yard & the other front yard.
After the $ we spent on "curb appeal" I can't just let it go. Just a pain in the neck.

[irisblue]

30. I decided the wood sprite in/around the sugar maple was cold & wanted insulation

The Sweet Gum in tbe back...well drops leaves like confetti ever since Ohio power came round after the 2004 ice storm in Ohio.

The power company guys trimmed branches.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_21%E2%80%9324,_2004,_North_American_winter_storm)

[Catbird]

3. Leave the leaves

Pollinators and other critters need them. If you can't leave all of them, consider leaving at least some of them. And you can save yourself a lot of work!

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Too Many

While I've heard a light layer is beneficial, these leaves get 3-4" deep, perhaps more. The lawn and small plants & ground cover in our cut-out areas wouldn't survive.

[MMBeilis]

5. Just got in from raking and I'm at 75% too. Oh, wait. I forgot about the back yard.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. As I Told Irisblue...

...we live on a corner, so we don't have a backyard. We have 2 front yards!
Actually, the landscaping brick work in our rear is more extensive than thar in the front street yard.
It's not like I can ignore it, though I often wish I could.

[The Madcap]

6. Depending on your yard, and how many trees you have

This is where a mulching mower can be your best friend.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. That's What I Have

It pulverized the leaves. I can get an awful lot of leaves in our bins that way.
I have a battery operated mower, but it's the equivalent of 7.5HP, so plenty of power to pulverize leaves.
Less so, of course, when they're wet. It rained Thursday, so they were a bit wet today.

[underpants]

10. I haven't even started.

Traveled last weekend for an emergency and my dog is recuperating from an injury on Tuesday.
Getting in it tomorrow. 2-3 hours every weekend or I’ll never catch up.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. I Did 3 Hours Yesterday

About 2½ today. Would have worked on the back fern garden but it started raining.
I did it on Wednesday too, but one bin was full from last Sunday. Our pick-up was Friday, do I got to start yesterday with 2 empty 90 gallon bins.

[underpants]

16. Fill one of the county trashcans a week + I shred the leaves and bag them

My wife wants to use them for mulching.

About 50 snow shovels fills a big leak trash bag thru one of these.



One year I filled up what’s really a 15’ x 12’ dog pit area in our backyard about 3 feet high after it compressed. I cut a path thru the middle to aerate it if I could. Too much so I filled a trashcan a week for a few months with the heavy ass mulch.

[viva la]

12. Yay!

What about the gutters?
I think I'm going to hire some youngster to get up on the ladder and deal with that.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. I Have Screens

I just put the blower into the downspout & hit the turbo button. Does a decent, but not spectacular job.
The handyman can do a complete job in the spring.
We live on a corner, and our garage is in the basement, so the gutters in the back are 25' up. (Our rear yard is at basement floor level.)
I'm not climbing a ladder that high! Geez, I don't even have a ladder tall enough.

[viva la]

14. I had screens, but they never worked. They kind of dissolved.

I would love to just blow the leaves away!

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Our Handyman Commented...

...that we had really good gutter filters. He said he never saw that type before. So, we may have a different style than you had.
The blower through the downspout isn't super efficient but I works well enough to avoid paying for gutter cleaning twice per year, instead of just once.

[LPBBEAR]

15. As some one

who has had the misfortune to live next to a neighbor who had a maple tree I would strongly suggest getting rid of them for your neighbors sake.

We suffered continuing damage from one that used to border our property as well as massive amounts of fall and year round cleanup work.

Driveway coated with goo.
Branch fell on my van and crushed in the roof.
Obnoxious whirly seeds worked their way into the fenders of one of my cars and rusted out the fenders
Ruined paint jobs on vehicles from the sap.

Finally one year during the fall while once again working on cleaning up the neighbors leaves on my property I looked up at the section overhanging our property and said to myself. "Thats it, I'm done!"

I went over to the neighbor who was also cleaning up the leaves mess and told him. "I'm calling a tree trimming service tomorrow and I'm going to have them remove anything over hanging my property." That was over a third of the tree. He knew I was serious. Later that week he had it removed.

Life has been so much better since.

Maple trees belong in forests, not next to your neighbors.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Hard Pass

The maples are on the street side (we live on a corner), so they don't impact the neighbors at all.
Also, I think you're forgetting how expensive it is to have trees cut down.
You're giving advice with other people's money.

[True Dough]

19. Speaking of which,

I have some surefire investment ideas for ya, Prof. DM me!

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Have To Pass On That, Too!

My retirement money is intentionally tied up so we can't do something stupid with it.

[LPBBEAR]

21. My Parents

lived across the street from a local high school. The street was a wide 2 lane street with parking along each side. The high school had maple trees lining the entire length pf their side of the street. As the years went on and my Parents became elderly it got harder and harder for them to do yard work. Each year in the fall the wind would blow the leaves from those trees at the high school across the street to my Parents property. The wind blown leaves would pile up against their 6 foot chain link fence sometimes as high as the fence itself. They also would pile up against their house and get into everything and every where in their yard and into the flowers my Mother had so carefully nurtured. As they they got older it became increasingly difficult for them to deal with the mess even though they tried as best they could. My brother and I lived in the area. I lived about 15 miles away and my Brother about 10. Often we would have to come over and assist them in removing the leaves, sometimes 2 or 3 times a week in the heaviest periods.

I'm not forgetting how expensive it can be to have one removed. I'm remembering how damaging and expensive they can be to others who live nearby and how hard it was for my elderly Parents to deal with leaves from trees they didn't even own in the last years of their lives.

Take a look around your neighborhood. I'm sure your trees are having some impact farther than you might realize.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. Unlikely That I'm Missing Anything

So, I stand by my take.

[MissB]

20. We try to keep them on the property

The edges of three sides around the house are ringed with both evergreen and deciduous trees. (Fourth side is a bunch of really tall firs).

Dh rakes up the leaves (uses the electric blower to move them off the hard surfaces). Our large covered coop gets a ton of them- the hens love to scratch through them. They’ll eventually be broken down by the girls. Since it is all undercover, the leaves stay dry.

We have three compost bins in the backyard. Dh puts some in each of the bins, which is great because I’m also currently cleaning up the summer garden, so having a layer of browns under the greens is great.

If there are still some, Dh will put some in the green bin for the next week’s pick up.

And that’s just on Saturdays

[WestMichRad]

22. I take my lawn at least 3 times each year

A fairly large area, and very large quantity of leaves, to manage. If I didn’t collect them, they’d be nearly a foot deep in some parts of the yard. They get raked onto a sheet and lugged to a huge pile that I cover with a tarp to keep them (mostly) dry. I use leaf mulch in our gardens, it is fantastic at suppressing weeds and adding organic matter to the soil. After 30+ years of using compost and leaf mulch, we have wonderful garden soil.
So the leaves are definitely a pain in the butt, but a wonderful resource. And good exercise.
I despise leaf blowers!

[justaprogressive]

25. I'm 100% done, and I haven't even left the house.

[GreenWave]

26. Collect those mulched jeaves and in late Spring mix with grass clippings.

I have repurposed plastic trash bins that serve as composters. Mix thoroughly about 1x a week and Bingo! Bango! in about a month your worms will have done a magnificent job of making compost.

[Harker]

27. Wind. n/t

[LuckyCharms]

28. About 75% here as well, Professor...

Large Silver Maple, Magnolia tree, Black Walnut tree, and two Weeping Cherry trees.

Ego battery powered blower with a 5 amp hour battery, around 535-560 CFM's, something like that. Does a good job!

[Keepthesoulalive]

29. I save them for compost.

Anything left over goes to sustain the forest.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Too Many For That

I get so many leaves but not enough areas to use it as compost. Yard waste goes to a huge composting center around 10 miles from here, so they're going to that use, just not in my yard.

[Keepthesoulalive]

35. I live in the country

Totally different situation.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. I See

I'm literally in the center of town.
One mile in all 4 directions is out of town! We couldn't get any closer to the middle oftown.

[applegrove]

32. I read that as 75% of americans are so "done" with leaves

I thought - so what are they all going to do, cut down the trees? That's not good. LOL. I still am looking at everything through an election filter.

[ProfessorGAC]

33. I Understand

It rained last night, so I get a break today. Mulcing wet leaves is a non-starter.

[applegrove]

34. Yeah for taking a break.

[Mosby]

37. I used to have three cottonwoods.

I bought this thing that looks like a regular blower, but it converts into a mulcher when you attach a bag and large tube on the bottom. The degree that it reduced the volume of leaves was remarkable.

[yellowdogintexas]

38. mine are still on the tree. They usually drop off all at once

in early December. The tree is huge. We usually fill 15 yard bags. There is another smaller one in the back yard

We quite doing them ourselves, old age requires us to hire that out.