Leave the Leaves!

It’s getting to be that time of year again where we might feel the need to rid our yards and landscapes of all the fallen leaves. But there’s really no need to clean them up completely! Fallen leaves are good for our yards, trees, and the critters! Fallen leaves provide food, shelter, and nesting to a variety of wildlife and insects, and they also help sustain birds, protect overwintering pollinators, and insulate plant roots. So in short, leave the leaves!

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A women after my own heart. Instead of raking cut them up with your mower, make a fine mulch out of them.

I dont mind helping animals but I have no interest in helping nest or shelter insects.

I almost always mulch the last few lawn mowing’s each season.

My wife has a Big Flower bed and I’ll rake up the leaves and pile them on the flower garden. In the spring I just take the blower vac and blow them off once I know its warm enough.

Dutchboy wrote:

A women after my own heart. Instead of raking cut them up with your mower, make a fine mulch out of them.

most my leaves hit the garden for fertilizer. i saved a pile last year and put them around my cukes and maters….worked good.

i bring 5 bags, the 50 lb sunflower and dog food bagsd up to the cabin, since there all maple after it snows the deer have that all torn apart by new years!!!!!

alos do what thumper does with my wifes flower bed…..and i cover my winter onions, and rubard!!

I haven’t bagged a leaf in about 8 years. Grass always looks nice in the springtime.

lol

I just planted my garlic for next year and then re-mowed the front yard using the bagger to collected the chopped leaves as mulch cover for the garlic bed. Worked well.

Whatever leaves we see from here on out I just blow out in the park land. Leaves are nice, yes, but gone leaves are even better.

As others have mentioned, I mulch most of mine. And I put some in my garden too.

I do still rake and bag a few though. I have a few big trees and the leaves there are just too thick to get mulched up.

I rake the thick stuff under a tree & mulch the rest

I haven’t raked a leaf in probably 15 years. They either get blown into the woods with a backpack blower or mulched into oblivion while getting grass down to its winter height

I mulch mine too.

If I left all the leaves in my back yard, I’d never find the dogshit.

12″ of leaf’s I am not leaving them lol.

However after the first bagging session, I am not worry about the others that will fall, those will be mulched up.

I have a mulching system on my tractor and it does a pretty fantastic job actually. I ran it over the bigger piles yesterday but still waiting on my silver leaf maples to even turn colors before I get serious about this. I mulched the side of my neighbors yard too since they would just end up in my yard anyway, then he bagged his after I was done. Saved him a lot of bag emptying.

Leaves get mulched or pushed to the road. No way I’m leaving them. The critters can go to the neighbors

I just wish these dang maples would fall. Far too many years they fall after a foot of snow is on the ground!

My maple is mocking me as I type this. Any day now its game on and my maple knows I hate raking……..

suzuki wrote:

My maple is mocking me as I type this. Any day now its game on and my maple knows I hate raking……..

Mine too and yeah raking sucks!

Don’t leave the leaves around your house since the mice like using them. I much and sweep them into the garden. Then till them in.

Thinking the people that leave them dont have many trees. I have at least 18 trees in my front yard. Large maples oaks birch plus fruit trees. Back yard probably 60. If they werent picked up the leaves would be a foot deep.

i cleaned up under my black walnut yesterday afternoon……and already it looks like i never touched it. my maples dont want to fall either!!!!!

JEREMY wrote:

Thinking the people that leave them dont have many trees. I have at least 18 trees in my front yard. Large maples oaks birch plus fruit trees. Back yard probably 60. If they werent picked up the leaves would be a foot deep.

No way if you have an oak or a big maple can you consider leaving them. They have so many dang leaves its ridiculous. I had to back up multiple times yesterday when I was mulching them because I was pushing them along with the mower deck. So glad when this time of year is over. Hopefully we get a VERY hard freeze and that usually finishes off the Maples I have, but sometimes its not until after a big snow and that is a BIG problem.

CaptainMusky wrote:

No way if you have an oak or a big maple can you consider leaving them. They have so many dang leaves its ridiculous.

No way to leave them when your neighbors blow them into the street and they end up in your yard!

-J.

Jon Jordan wrote:

No way to leave them when your neighbors blow them into the street and they end up in your yard!

I have a strong dislike for this type of person. Thankfully we have good neighbors around us that clean up their leaves but we obviously get some of theirs, but unfortunately they get very few of mine because of prevailing winds and Im on the end of the street LOL

We all clear leaves to the road and a county truck comes by and vacs them once a week in the fall

Bearcat89 wrote:

We all clear leaves to the road and a county truck comes by and vacs them once a week in the fall

That would be nice!

I tried that one year at the old house filled with oak trees. Too much acid in oak leaves and the lawn was not in good shape in the spring. Took a full year to recover.

Dutchboy wrote:

A women after my own heart. Instead of raking cut them up with your mower, make a fine mulch out of them.

Bearcat89 wrote:

We all clear leaves to the road and a county truck comes by and vacs them once a week in the fall

WOw that is awesome! I wish they did that here.

I have a maple in the front that is bright red right now. In the back there is one that is fully green.

My giant maple that is purple all year is green now. I dont remember if that always happens. 4 right now are yellow and 2 that are red. Wish they looked like that all year.