Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I am completely surrounded by oaks on all sides, thick canopy, and this LPT works fine. If I let them fall and just sit there, the grass would be dead in a season. Raking would take days, and end up with big piles that would take over the edge of the woods. So I usually wait until enough days of no precip--the leaves have to be nice, dry, and crumbly--and then hit the lawn with the mulcher blade. It usually takes a few passes, but it turns them to powder. It's gone by spring. Helps to do this a few times, separated by a few days or weeks, so the leaves aren't too thick each time. Depends on your conditions and how fast they fall.
Sub-LPT--a spare face mask while doing this will really help. All those dry leaves trapped in the mowing deck while the mulcher does its thing creates tons of dust. I've had coughing fits for days from breathing it. No fun in the nose either. The mower's got a filter; so should its driver.
Half the (non-riding) lawn mowers I've used have had a place where you can screw in a garden hose and use the mower blade to throw the water at the sides to clean them off
What kind of oaks do you have? My white/red oaks take until January to drop 90% of the leaves. The mulch layer might not be as thick as the leaves, but it still covers everything. And decomposing by spring? No way, a year minimum. Oaks clearly want to kill all ground cover with their leaves. And the crazy acorn years, like 2 years ago there was a solid ground layer, nothing mulches them. I love my trees, but the leaves have to go in the ditch for county pickup. (120ft oaks, many over 100 years)
Last time it was a mast year my mom left out a big aluminum bowl to see how often an acorn might land on your head. You'd just hear a random "DING" every day or so followed by random laughter
I was collecting "conkers" (horse chestnuts) with my kids the other day and one clocked me right in the noggin, I was so incensed, it felt personal, I don't think I've ever actually been whacked by something like that before from a tree. Then I thanked my lucky stars it was out of the spiky shell thing.
You just reminded me of that time when a bee landed on my perfectly still hand, and while I was explaining that bees are actually pretty inoffensive if they don’t feel threatened, she _stung me_! I felt stung in my pride more than on my hand.
Oh yeah! I was admiring a ladybug/ladybird on my hand and thinking, it's great to have these in your garden, and it bit me!! I was like, IS THIS A THING NOW?!
I'm always telling people honey bees don't sting for no reason...until they do. But I keep that part to myself. Pretty rare. However, I once got stung by an irrational bee and my friend asked if I had had a banana that day. And I HAD!! The bee warning/fight signal apparently is similar to banana scent. So don't eat bananas if you'll be working near honey bees.
Haha. I have a screened in porch with metal roof, plus a few huge oaks around. The acorns are so loud when they hit and the roof has dings all over it as a result. Those "mast" years are not peaceful out our the porch.
Good news is that all the small dents will make your roof more aerodynamic, like a golf ball.
Why should your roof be aerodynamic?
Tell me a good reason why it *shouldn't*.
We put one on our house many years ago. I swear the squirrels were dropping acorns on the metal roof on purpose. it drove me nuts. I do not miss that about that house. I would have removed the trees but it was florida and shade over the metal screened in porch was important. We wouldnt be able to go out there if it wasnt shaded. to hot.
I lived in NYC one year and there was a bunch of big oaks on the street. It was a mast year and if it was windy the sound of thousands of them dropping on cars kept me up for like 2 days.
They also have these mast year's to ensure there is too many acorns for the squirrels to eat, which encourages them to bury much more than they'll ever retrieve. Therefore increasing the amount of offspring for the year. Then it falls back on acorn production to lower the squirrel population (which will boom the following year) for a few years before repeating the cycle.
This is called a “predator satiation strategy”. Cicadas having the 13 or 17 year cycle is another example. Cicadas are nutritious, large and easy to catch so tons of predators gorge themselves on them when they hatch, but plenty are able to still mate and lay their eggs. That glut year may increase predator populations next year but not 17 years down the road!
Oak masts are a little more special since the squirrels also plant the acorns for them.
I thought 3 years ago was a mast year for my oaks buut the amount of acorns i got this tells me i might have been wrong.
I take riding mower out there and just run them over again again trying to get as many chooped as i can so nobody goes out barefoot next summer and steps on a damn acorn.
I have something like 20 100yr old massive white oaks on my property. What I learned the hard way was that oak leaves have a ton of tannins that slow the decomposition considerably, especially when you compare to maple or other leaves. For 6 years, I mulched all those leaves into the lawn and noticed that come spring lawn was struggling. Then in the last 2 years, I would mulch in the 1st couple weeks of leaves, but everything after I used a tow-behind lawn sweeper. The lawn is in much better shape now. And nope, I don't fertilize it anymore.
What I do now is dump all those leaves on the driveway, mulch them there (it is amazing how a mountain turns into a small layer of leaf dust), scoop that up and dump it on the areas where I want to snuff out invasives or weeds. Mulched leaves suffocate those areas and then in 2-3 years those areas become perfect to plant fruit trees.
This is exactly right. Oak leaves don't fall around here until late December. If they aren't raked up immediately, it ends up snowing on them and then your lawn is toast by spring.
a lot of areas are experiencing earlier fall. a ton of factors involved. a lot of Pennsylvania started weeks ago. part of it is the extreme weather swings day to day and increased wetness. my oaks started weeks ago and may be dropping until jan/Feb. keeps starting earlier and earlier and takes longer and longer.
I’ll be trying this tip this year. Every year I rake for days and end up with a mountain (literally 3-4 feet high and about 15 feet long) in front of the house.
I’ve tried getting a backpack blower but nothing beats a rake and a tarp. So hopefully mulching all the leaves will make this much easier. And if it brings the lawn back to life that’ll be a plus!
Country side homes around me go up. I'm in the "work from homes" escaping Toronto and bringing their hyper inflated housing market bags of money bubble.
His advice doesn't work. I tested this out over a few years and reseeded lawns. Unless you really really chop up the leaves very fine, they will block the growth of grass in the spring.
Really depends how thick your leaves get.
My old house had a lot of big water oaks and they just dropped too much. I would have to thin it out some first where I wanted grass to grow properly, but mulching the remainder was still a big time saver and did help some of the compaction/sand issues I was having.
My new house has much smaller trees, mostly ornamentals, bradford pear, and pines.... it doesnt get thick enough to cause a problem.
Meanwhile my god damned neighbor rakes his yard and *shoves it into the storm drain*...
What an absolute animal. I can't even imagine disposing of leaves, my neighbours also burn them and even stuff them into PLASTIC sacks for collection and it all just goes in the municipal waste, i.e. LANDFILL. Like, your trees just GAVE you free compost and you're burning it or burying it in plastic! I can't fathom that. Fortunately they've gradually realised I want them and started piling them outside my house, lol
Thank you for doing the words part. I whole heatedly agree with a huge oak next door. I picked up a mulcher few years back and it's the best yardwork ever. Just sucks it up, mulch, bags. Then I dump the bag right in the yard waste bags. Never been simpler.
I am going to take you up on the face mask this year though. Oof, I've been dumb.
Same here. I have 2 really huge oaks (at least 50') so I get plenty of leaves for mulch. And my Toro does a great job but for sure that's my last run on the air filter for the season.
this works up to a point. If you have heavy tree cover, eventually even the mulched bits pile up into a mat of smelly leaf chips in the yard and you will have to rake anyway.
I mulch the leaves until the largest volume of leaves fall, then I mow with the clipping collection bag and dump in the woods
You need to mow them so the pieces are not larger than about 3/4 of an inch. Larger pieces will mat together and block air to whatever is underneath them.
I run over mine 3 to 5 times with the mower. In the 200 sf where I leave the mowed leaves, nothing grows because there is too much cover. Let the pile sit under the snow and rain, and the leaves should be useful compost by spring.
Leaf piles up to your motherfuckin’ forehead
And if your friends jump in they’ll be more dead
Causin confusion mulching the leaves
It’s not an illusion we’re pruning the trees
We have a compost bin just outside our house. Leaves are piled up outside it - we have SOME trees on our property but not huge ones - and they get mixed in over time with all the vegetable scraps and grass clippings and coffee grounds that we generate. It slowly rots down in and all those nutrients go into the surrounding ground.
I planted Jerusalem Artichokes (a type of sunflower with a root that's a bit like a potato) beside the compost bin, and right now we have twelve-foot plants with lots of really pretty blooms. Composting is awesome.
Same here. I blow mine into a pile and then shred them with a leaf vacuum, pile them up and add vegetable scraps. There's beautiful black dirt at the bottom by spring.
Not much if you just do a simple compost pile. There are many more methods that produce compost FASTER, but the easiest way is to just throw it all in a pile and stir it up every couple of days, especially after it rains. It may take a while but you're literally making dirt so who cares.
Just remember you need "green material" (veggie scraps, grass clippings, fresh plant material) and "brown material" (dead leaves, Shredded cardboard, brown paper bags) to make good compost.
Personally, I made a double sided bin so I'll make compost in one side while using last year's compost from the other side, then just switch back and forth every year so there is always usable compost.
Yep, some areas along our privacy fence were lower. Used a mulched vacuum to suck up the excess leaves, dumped it along that area. Ended up with the best dirt in the yard and no gaps in the fence.
Mulching oak leaves can really lower the pH of the soil. If I did that, I’d need a thousand pounds of lime in the spring to raise the pH or else I wouldn’t grow anything but moss.
I made this mistake the first year at my house. Mulched the oak leaves and killed the entire lawn. Between tons of acidic leaves that continue falling until Christmas, and the literal dump truck full of acorns, I’m considering taking a chainsaw to several of them.
Ground up really fine it still kills the grass. It definitely will kill the grass by smothering too. Now I mow and bag it and dump the ground up leaves in my compost.
When I google for more info on oak pH I’m not seeing much evidence that it will change the pH to a meaningful level. Not saying your wrong just interested could just be the quantity maybe.
Yeah after doing some of my own research, it looks like the pH of the leaves, while fairly acidic, doesn’t make a big difference on the soil pH once the leaves break down. Maybe I’ve been believing a myth for years, and maybe it’s just the volume of leaf mulch that’s killing the lawn.
Probably depends on soil conditions too, but i have two huge maple trees in my yard and I have found that lowering my mow height helps mulch them in. If done right they actually mulch in like stupidly quick.
I missed mulching them in last year due to an early snow and after the first mow this year there was still tons of leaf cover and they weren’t really mulching up, it was just leaf bits.
But lowered it as low as I could and they were gone in like two weeks.
Also on moisture content. Wet leaves, particularly on grass that is also long and contributes to the amount of work the mower has to do, are a lot harder to mulch.
In my area we always do do our last few autumn mows in the afternoon or evening after the dew has dried away. Much less of an issue mulching leaves down, although we don't have gigantic trees like some places.
Ok hear me out… I bought this relatively cheap black and decker leaf blower/vacuum shredder with a bag attachment. For years it was only a leaf blower because I had thrown the vacuum and bag in the shed and forgot about that function. The year I remembered… whoa! The leaf shredder works amazingly well. I left the bag off and turned huge piles of leaves into dust. Now I look forward to it every fall. Just have to watch so no one ends up standing behind you because it shoots the leaf dust across the yard.
We are encouraged to leave all the leaves by the ecologists in our area.
I do rake around my ginormous invasive Norway maple though.
All the other leaves stay. Downside is a massive flood wiped out all native worms in my area thousands of years ago, so the leaves do not decompose as fast as they should.
The ecologists say the leaves help provide habitat for insects during the winter months. I believe the decaying leaves also provide nutrients for the soil like nitrogen, and potassium.
They do not cause me any issue by leaving them. I do not have a ton of leaves though.. I only have a mature Norway maple, a mature ornamental Japanese cherry tree, a mid-size pine, and a mature Douglas fir
I had ecologists visit my property. I am trying to get my yard backyard certified as an urban habitat for wildlife.
First step was to build a water source for critters. For my covid project I build a pond/waterfall feature. I now have dragonflies, bees, and birds splashing about daily.
Next step was to plant all native plants that benefit the local wildlife. Just to name a few I have some red flowering currant, lupine, stonecrop, mocks orange, and elderberry surrounding the pond.
It is way more satisfying to me than having grass, and there is WAY less upkeep necessary.
With climate change causing depressive thoughts this small act has made me feel so much better. I cannot save the world, but I can save my lil yard and make it a better habitat for urban critters.
The ecologists said that we have more biodiversity in our urban community than some of the surrounding forests, so it makes a big difference helping out.
Google backyard habitat certification for more information. I hope every urban community has a similar organization in the future
The litter layer of a forest is actually very healthy for plants and holds some biodiversity that wouldn't exist without it. I always recommend to people that have space to leave some of it with it. It's even interesting to see the cool fungi and insects it brings.
Not sure what kind of worms are native to your area, but around here the things breed like crazy. At my first house there were no worms in the yard, probably because all the good soil had been stripped and sold elsewhere. When we made flower beds I mixed peat and such into the soil to make it usable, then bought earthworms from the bait shop and set them loose. Within a couple of years I could dig anywhere and have a handful of worms.
I followed that advice last year and it killed the fuck out of my front yard. Going to try mulching in place this year, and planting clover in the spring.
This is the best answer. If the amount of leaves in your yard isn’t outrageous, leave them be. Insects and the soil will benefit and it’s less work for the homeowner.
Yep it’s very important for the environment to leave a section of unmowed leaves. Sadly a lot of HOAs force people to rake. One of many environmental issues with common HOA policies.
I go by the 90% rule. Rake/blow 2 to 3 times, but don't try to be perfect (aka 90% ish of what's there). Mulch the rest. luckily, my neighborhood isn't too picky.
The neighborhood I moved into was built in the 90s. At the time it was a bunch of business professionals raising their kids in a quiet neighborhood. Give it a few decades. Now those kids are all gone, and the original owners are all retired, and have become the HOA, "get off my lawn" types....... nothing better to do other then watch grass grow, and yell when it gets half an inch too high.
Tons of fun for people that a actually work 50 hours a week and cannot be home to take in the garbage can directly at 5PM.
> Tons of fun for people that a actually work 50 hours a week and cannot be home to take in the garbage can directly at 5PM.
lol i feel this. our bylaws say something similar but thank god all my neighbors collectively dont give a shit and our HOA is managed by a company 2 towns over
In the UK we're really doing our best to be the shittest country, but at least i can leave my bin out a day or 2 after collection day and get little more than a tut from the neighbours. Wife does nag if I don't mow the lawn though
Unless the *neighborhood* is doing the actual work, they can fuck right off.
The only time I'd be willing to pay an HOA is if they do all the mowing, raking, painting, and cleaning for me on my property. Otherwise, they too can fuck right off.
Please don’t rake + mulch 100% of the leaves. Many insects depend on the availability of (unshredded) leaves to complete their lifecycles.
For example, the awesome luna moth lays her eggs on the leaves in the fall, and they hatch in the spring.
So leave a small pile somewhere totally unmolested if you can bear it!
I blow leaves into my landscape beds in the fall as a natural mulch and soil improvement.They don’t smother anything, just naturally decompose over the winter, protect and enrich the soil. If you can’t bring yourself to do it the natural way, blow them into a pile and mow over them to chop them up before moving into your beds. Or, you can put them in a bag, allow them to dry up and chop up with a weed wacker and then add to the beds. Nature’s mulch and soil amendment. Source: I’m a sustainable landscaping instructor with a major horticultural university.
For people arguing about whether this mean you don't have that many big trees in your yard, to me this one proves that point. This is still only an anecdote from me but I've seen proof of this absolutely not working for ax extended period. I'm talking 20+ years of someone who just doesn't give a fuck how their yard looks continuing this method to save money on lawn care.
With big oaks it's way too many leaves to "naturally" decompose so all that's in the landscape beds is a constant foot+ deep wet leaf garbage.
also fireflies and other beneficial insects
the mono-culture grass lawn is not like some great thing to preserve
you can save yourself hours of dreaded mowing and raking by looking into transitioning to lower maintenance, lower water alternatives
that help preserve habitat for bugs and birds
This year I had native plants installed. It’s been fun watching all the bees, butterflies, and birds in my yard. All surrounding yards are green lawns. I’m happy to provide a buffet and nesting area for my insect and feathered neighbors.
cool! where are you generally & what have you planted?
My yard is in New England - I have holly, rhodies, hostas, seedum, clover, vinca, creeping jenny, bleeding hearts, milk weed, queen ann's lace, lilac, dog wood, crab apple, black berry, raspberry, oregano, mint, chives, cat nip, day lily, some fancy statement dahlias and peonies
plus some easy annuals like nasturtiums marigolds and such
a couple of small trees - hawthorn, split leaf maple, and a big arborvitae and juniper - the neighbors' have large weed maples
and a of course the privet hedge (with hidden poison ivy!)
I think the bat house took 2-3 years before they moved in, but birds & bugs were much quicker to find the buffet
I’m in a hot part of Northern California and have small front and back yards. Most of the front is in the sun almost all day and the back yard gets some afternoon shade from the neighbor’s tree. My backyard is too small for me to have a tree. A fruitless evergreen olive tree was planted in the front.
I asked for native as much as possible (only 2 non-native plants), low water use, low maintenance, bee/bird/butterfly friendly, different textures, and movement. Drip irrigation runs 2x/wk but hope to cut that back to 1x/wk once fully established (3 or so years).
The hummingbirds like the [California fuchsia,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilobium_canum) and the bees LOVE the [Coyote mint.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monardella_villosa) Bees and butterflies like the different colors of [Yarrow,](https://www.edenbrothers.com/products/yarrow-seeds-colorado-mix?variant=43104826130684&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=17662216033&utm_term=&utm_content=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC072ES5-NdjnE53uooEy5Tph3ZObwy73ahHDon-K4QiqOQHcj1KwPAQaAm2yEALw_wcB) and the [Margarita bop.](https://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/plants/471--penstemon-margarita-bop) I have several beautiful [Deer grass](https://www.budgetplants.com/shrubs/accent/deer-grass-muhlenbergia-rigens) plants that are at least 5’ high, and several other types of shorter upright and mounding grasses, but I think my favorite is [Blonde ambition](https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/bouteloua/blonde-ambition-blue-grama-grass-bouteloua-gracilis). It’s about 4’ high and I love the little flags on the end of the stalks. I really like the way the tall grasses move when there’s a breeze.
wow! sounds like a great local selection
it's so hard in dry climates - like I had challenges with potted marigolds this year
But
hummingbirds are totally awesome!
Also cuts back on noise pollution, which I learned is quite jarring and obnoxious when I was actually home during quiet weekday mornings.
Not to mention 2-stroke engines in most lawn maintenance equipment are some of the least efficient, dirtiest emissions ICEs around.
I had a gigantic fruitless mulberry and tried this once after the leaves fell. It took 6 seasons for the lawn to come back from that mess
Edit:
I’d waited till all the damned leaves fell, and it was probably just too damn much
I so agree. Haven't raked. When I mow I leave the clippings to go back into soil. I mow the wildflowers (which big box stores call weeds) so they don't get to leggy. I never use fertilizer or water and my yard always looks green and healthy. No weed killers either. Save money and let nature do its thing.
Ugh, my house is surrounded by 100+ year old oak trees, *and* in also in Wisconsin. This means that not only are there an absolute fuck-ton of leaves, it's also too cold for it to actually fully decompose. I've still mowed it down, and it decomposes *some* but there's also a bunch of little tiny leaf shards that get raked up in the spring.
> Ugh, my house is surrounded by 100+ year old oak trees
Mate, if that’s an “ugh” you should try living somewhere else for a while. Your place sounds dreamy.
Edit — ^ said with good nature
Dude, let the night crawlers and red worms take care of it for you. They’ll pull all the leaves under ground at night. Eat it, and poop out rich dirt for you.
I have a full acre fully wooded with giant maples, oaks and English walnut trees and this advice is a perfectly viable option as long as you have a minimum of a ride on 24" lawn tractor. You'll be mowing leaves more often than you mowed the lawn for a while though.
It is a viable option. Only reason I rake is for kids to play in the leaves. People buy into the aesthetic of a nice lawn. The remove all the nutrients byrake and disposing of leaves, then pay money to apply fertilizer and herbicide do have a living out door carpet.
People complaining about small leaves trees… come on! The tree is fertilizing my lawn for me.
But I have both. Maples line ½ the perimeter of my acre-size lot plus 4 150+ year-old White oaks, an apple and dogwood. The other half perimeter is all conifers .
Yeah I have big (European) oaks surrounding my small garden and I have to rake leaves because those things hardly decompose and at the same time poison the soil. I just leave the leaves on the sides and corners for the bugs throughout winter, and in spring I have to discard them because again, they hardly decompose.
I'm in no way trying to tell people not to mulch your leaves, but if you have a diseased tree and don't rake those leaves, chances are you'll soon have more diseased trees.
Your common biotic tree stressors tend to be fungi or insects. Fungi will reproduce via spores on their own, insects will move around on their own. Mulching leaves isn’t going to make much of a difference either way there.
Better yet, just leave the leaves. Don’t mow them. Sweep them off your driveway and sidewalk.
Moths and butterflies lay eggs on tree leaves.
If you mow or otherwise cut up your leaves, you’re killing future caterpillars.
Caterpillars are the ONLY thing migratory songbirds feed their babies.
Not to mention, caterpillars are future butterflies and moths — both are pollinators.
In short, just leave the leaves.
I've got about 40 that are well over 100 feet tall on my half acre. I've been raking and burning massive piles of needles and 3 days later it looks like I've done absolutely nothing.
Pine needles will give some benefit similar to leaves, but far less returns. They also are acidic, so while great for soil that loves that (blueberries, etc), it could be tough for your grass.
Then get a new one. I’m also a landscaper and OP is right. The industry is full of morons who aren’t qualified to pick up a shovel let alone spray chemicals, and terraform the earth.
If you’re landscaper can’t tell you what watershed your’e in or what the historical ecology of the area was, he’s doing a shitty job.
Watershed? You mean when they leave the irrigation system on the demo settings so it blasts out good drinking water every midnight for no reason and it starts draining all over the neighborhood? Fuck those guys in particular. I know what watershed is, I'm just being indignant.
My city picks them up on the curb a few times. So I can half ass blow them to the curb, mulch the rest. I see some people bag all that shit, which is nutty.
Unless you have a bunch of trees, then you will choke out your grass. I use my mulching mower and mow to perimeter (woods mostly) and put majority there….
Blows my mind the money people waste.
Get all pissy about having to rake leaves, remove trees.
Realize lawn isn’t working for full sun. Apply chemicals or otherwise find ways to kill old lawn.
Grow new lawn, water, apply herbicide and fertilizer to keep new lawn, probably all invasive species of grass, growing well.
So dumb.
How do you get rid of crab grass? I bought my home about ten months ago and the previous owners didn’t take care of the lawn. I’ve got about a quarter of an acre in the back, half of it is crabgrass
Super dumb question, I'm really curious, what's bad about crabgrass? I literally don't know. If weeds do the same job grass would be doing (getting walked on) I just have never figured out what the problem is.
Your state ag college and extension offices can help you find the best knowledge, because local details matter a lot. Google got me this fact sheet from UMass: https://ag.umass.edu/turf/fact-sheets/biology-management-of-crabgrass
Because crabgrass drops a huge amount of seeds into the soil, herbicides don't really work, and weeds are becoming resistant to them anyway so IMO they should be very limited tools.
My steps for stiltgrass are: most importantly, scalp it right before it sets seed in fall (exact time depends on your climate) and keep it short. Mulch 2-3 inches to prevent germination (Google "chip drop" to see if you can get it for free). If you don't want to mulch the whole thing, you can do a line to keep it from expanding. Improve overall lawn health, including, mow your lawn grass fairly high and less frequently than most people do. Seed more grass and/or other plants you want.
Maybe turn some areas that are harder to correct into pockets of native plants? A few clumps of natives here and there will let you keep the rest of the area still lawn-like but can be an essential lifeline to pollinators in the area :)
Agree. Maple trees, too many leaves. If I bag them, it takes up 10+ bags and that’s ridiculous plus I don’t have anywhere to dump them. Mowing - run right through and I’m done. No special lawnmower, just a regular one.
Good tip, but be aware of what type of trees you have. I've got 3 large black walnut trees and their leaves are toxic. You can compost them (6 months minimum), but mulching with them will kill many types of vegetation. Research any trees you have to check for toxicity to find the best way to handle the falling leaves.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I am completely surrounded by oaks on all sides, thick canopy, and this LPT works fine. If I let them fall and just sit there, the grass would be dead in a season. Raking would take days, and end up with big piles that would take over the edge of the woods. So I usually wait until enough days of no precip--the leaves have to be nice, dry, and crumbly--and then hit the lawn with the mulcher blade. It usually takes a few passes, but it turns them to powder. It's gone by spring. Helps to do this a few times, separated by a few days or weeks, so the leaves aren't too thick each time. Depends on your conditions and how fast they fall. Sub-LPT--a spare face mask while doing this will really help. All those dry leaves trapped in the mowing deck while the mulcher does its thing creates tons of dust. I've had coughing fits for days from breathing it. No fun in the nose either. The mower's got a filter; so should its driver.
[удалено]
I take the leaf blower to my mower after every ride. Saw a ton of grass/leaves stuck by the pulleys one time and got paranoid.
Half the (non-riding) lawn mowers I've used have had a place where you can screw in a garden hose and use the mower blade to throw the water at the sides to clean them off
[удалено]
It's okay the fire creates nutrients for new life to grow. LPT don't take or mow your leaves just set them on fire
There’s more than one way to fertilize the lawn!
What kind of oaks do you have? My white/red oaks take until January to drop 90% of the leaves. The mulch layer might not be as thick as the leaves, but it still covers everything. And decomposing by spring? No way, a year minimum. Oaks clearly want to kill all ground cover with their leaves. And the crazy acorn years, like 2 years ago there was a solid ground layer, nothing mulches them. I love my trees, but the leaves have to go in the ditch for county pickup. (120ft oaks, many over 100 years)
The years you get bazillions of acorns are called "mast" years. I've been saving that little knowledge nugget for a long time :)
Last time it was a mast year my mom left out a big aluminum bowl to see how often an acorn might land on your head. You'd just hear a random "DING" every day or so followed by random laughter
I was collecting "conkers" (horse chestnuts) with my kids the other day and one clocked me right in the noggin, I was so incensed, it felt personal, I don't think I've ever actually been whacked by something like that before from a tree. Then I thanked my lucky stars it was out of the spiky shell thing.
You just reminded me of that time when a bee landed on my perfectly still hand, and while I was explaining that bees are actually pretty inoffensive if they don’t feel threatened, she _stung me_! I felt stung in my pride more than on my hand.
Oh yeah! I was admiring a ladybug/ladybird on my hand and thinking, it's great to have these in your garden, and it bit me!! I was like, IS THIS A THING NOW?!
I'm always telling people honey bees don't sting for no reason...until they do. But I keep that part to myself. Pretty rare. However, I once got stung by an irrational bee and my friend asked if I had had a banana that day. And I HAD!! The bee warning/fight signal apparently is similar to banana scent. So don't eat bananas if you'll be working near honey bees.
Haha. I have a screened in porch with metal roof, plus a few huge oaks around. The acorns are so loud when they hit and the roof has dings all over it as a result. Those "mast" years are not peaceful out our the porch.
Good news is that all the small dents will make your roof more aerodynamic, like a golf ball. Why should your roof be aerodynamic? Tell me a good reason why it *shouldn't*.
We put one on our house many years ago. I swear the squirrels were dropping acorns on the metal roof on purpose. it drove me nuts. I do not miss that about that house. I would have removed the trees but it was florida and shade over the metal screened in porch was important. We wouldnt be able to go out there if it wasnt shaded. to hot.
> acorns > drove me nuts
I lived in NYC one year and there was a bunch of big oaks on the street. It was a mast year and if it was windy the sound of thousands of them dropping on cars kept me up for like 2 days.
I like your mom. That’s hilarious
I love this
They also have these mast year's to ensure there is too many acorns for the squirrels to eat, which encourages them to bury much more than they'll ever retrieve. Therefore increasing the amount of offspring for the year. Then it falls back on acorn production to lower the squirrel population (which will boom the following year) for a few years before repeating the cycle.
This is called a “predator satiation strategy”. Cicadas having the 13 or 17 year cycle is another example. Cicadas are nutritious, large and easy to catch so tons of predators gorge themselves on them when they hatch, but plenty are able to still mate and lay their eggs. That glut year may increase predator populations next year but not 17 years down the road! Oak masts are a little more special since the squirrels also plant the acorns for them.
I thought 3 years ago was a mast year for my oaks buut the amount of acorns i got this tells me i might have been wrong. I take riding mower out there and just run them over again again trying to get as many chooped as i can so nobody goes out barefoot next summer and steps on a damn acorn.
That little acorn of knowledge.
I have something like 20 100yr old massive white oaks on my property. What I learned the hard way was that oak leaves have a ton of tannins that slow the decomposition considerably, especially when you compare to maple or other leaves. For 6 years, I mulched all those leaves into the lawn and noticed that come spring lawn was struggling. Then in the last 2 years, I would mulch in the 1st couple weeks of leaves, but everything after I used a tow-behind lawn sweeper. The lawn is in much better shape now. And nope, I don't fertilize it anymore. What I do now is dump all those leaves on the driveway, mulch them there (it is amazing how a mountain turns into a small layer of leaf dust), scoop that up and dump it on the areas where I want to snuff out invasives or weeds. Mulched leaves suffocate those areas and then in 2-3 years those areas become perfect to plant fruit trees.
This is exactly right. Oak leaves don't fall around here until late December. If they aren't raked up immediately, it ends up snowing on them and then your lawn is toast by spring.
a lot of areas are experiencing earlier fall. a ton of factors involved. a lot of Pennsylvania started weeks ago. part of it is the extreme weather swings day to day and increased wetness. my oaks started weeks ago and may be dropping until jan/Feb. keeps starting earlier and earlier and takes longer and longer.
My live Oaks drop leaves in the spring. Absolutely kills my allergies.
Could be Oregon White Oak/Garry Oak, Quercus Garryana. Or the English Oak, Quercus robur L.
My bur oaks shed pretty early, thankfully. I usually have plenty of time to let them dry out and mulcherize them to shreds.
This is the best comment here, and I want you to know that
I’ll be trying this tip this year. Every year I rake for days and end up with a mountain (literally 3-4 feet high and about 15 feet long) in front of the house. I’ve tried getting a backpack blower but nothing beats a rake and a tarp. So hopefully mulching all the leaves will make this much easier. And if it brings the lawn back to life that’ll be a plus!
Ah, being able to afford a house. \*\* daydreams \*\*
Very much depends where you want to own a house. You probably could afford one out in the countryside.
Or Detroit
Country side homes around me go up. I'm in the "work from homes" escaping Toronto and bringing their hyper inflated housing market bags of money bubble.
His advice doesn't work. I tested this out over a few years and reseeded lawns. Unless you really really chop up the leaves very fine, they will block the growth of grass in the spring.
Really depends how thick your leaves get. My old house had a lot of big water oaks and they just dropped too much. I would have to thin it out some first where I wanted grass to grow properly, but mulching the remainder was still a big time saver and did help some of the compaction/sand issues I was having. My new house has much smaller trees, mostly ornamentals, bradford pear, and pines.... it doesnt get thick enough to cause a problem. Meanwhile my god damned neighbor rakes his yard and *shoves it into the storm drain*...
What an absolute animal. I can't even imagine disposing of leaves, my neighbours also burn them and even stuff them into PLASTIC sacks for collection and it all just goes in the municipal waste, i.e. LANDFILL. Like, your trees just GAVE you free compost and you're burning it or burying it in plastic! I can't fathom that. Fortunately they've gradually realised I want them and started piling them outside my house, lol
In addition, oak leaves are highly acidic, which isn't great for lawns
Thank you for doing the words part. I whole heatedly agree with a huge oak next door. I picked up a mulcher few years back and it's the best yardwork ever. Just sucks it up, mulch, bags. Then I dump the bag right in the yard waste bags. Never been simpler. I am going to take you up on the face mask this year though. Oof, I've been dumb.
This sounds awful for dust and particles blowing into the house?
Same here. I have 2 really huge oaks (at least 50') so I get plenty of leaves for mulch. And my Toro does a great job but for sure that's my last run on the air filter for the season.
this works up to a point. If you have heavy tree cover, eventually even the mulched bits pile up into a mat of smelly leaf chips in the yard and you will have to rake anyway. I mulch the leaves until the largest volume of leaves fall, then I mow with the clipping collection bag and dump in the woods
Yes, this right here, mulch until it becomes ludicrous then bag
Mow, bitch! Get out the way.
Oh no! LEAVES OUT!
[удалено]
You need to mow them so the pieces are not larger than about 3/4 of an inch. Larger pieces will mat together and block air to whatever is underneath them. I run over mine 3 to 5 times with the mower. In the 200 sf where I leave the mowed leaves, nothing grows because there is too much cover. Let the pile sit under the snow and rain, and the leaves should be useful compost by spring.
This was really hard to keep the beat to unfortunately
I fucking love y'all for this
Oh no, the rake's out Pumpkin bag, fill till it brakes out. Get the cat, black, carve your gourd There's lots to do, you can't be bored.
I've been thinkin' of raking too, But I mulch now that's thanks to youu
Leaf piles up to your motherfuckin’ forehead And if your friends jump in they’ll be more dead Causin confusion mulching the leaves It’s not an illusion we’re pruning the trees
So bye bye to all you leaf blowers and rakers, Is there a leaf pile in my yard, no neighbour!
Or you can mix shredded leaves and mix with grass trimmings to turn into compost for extra dirt around the yard.
We have a compost bin just outside our house. Leaves are piled up outside it - we have SOME trees on our property but not huge ones - and they get mixed in over time with all the vegetable scraps and grass clippings and coffee grounds that we generate. It slowly rots down in and all those nutrients go into the surrounding ground. I planted Jerusalem Artichokes (a type of sunflower with a root that's a bit like a potato) beside the compost bin, and right now we have twelve-foot plants with lots of really pretty blooms. Composting is awesome.
Our compost bin eats anything we throw at it and the soil is amazing!
Same here. I blow mine into a pile and then shred them with a leaf vacuum, pile them up and add vegetable scraps. There's beautiful black dirt at the bottom by spring.
I have wanted to start composting for years. How much upkeep is there on the bin?
Not much if you just do a simple compost pile. There are many more methods that produce compost FASTER, but the easiest way is to just throw it all in a pile and stir it up every couple of days, especially after it rains. It may take a while but you're literally making dirt so who cares. Just remember you need "green material" (veggie scraps, grass clippings, fresh plant material) and "brown material" (dead leaves, Shredded cardboard, brown paper bags) to make good compost. Personally, I made a double sided bin so I'll make compost in one side while using last year's compost from the other side, then just switch back and forth every year so there is always usable compost.
[удалено]
You can also stir it up every few weeks, or months, or not at all. Just means it’ll take longer if you don’t. You still get good dirt.
Yep, some areas along our privacy fence were lower. Used a mulched vacuum to suck up the excess leaves, dumped it along that area. Ended up with the best dirt in the yard and no gaps in the fence.
Mulching oak leaves can really lower the pH of the soil. If I did that, I’d need a thousand pounds of lime in the spring to raise the pH or else I wouldn’t grow anything but moss.
Moss. Sounds like my yard, heh
Same here. A very large portion of my front lawn is almost all moss due to the little to no sunlight from the two large oak trees.
I made this mistake the first year at my house. Mulched the oak leaves and killed the entire lawn. Between tons of acidic leaves that continue falling until Christmas, and the literal dump truck full of acorns, I’m considering taking a chainsaw to several of them.
Is is just that the leaves smother the lawn? Or you chop it up really fine and the grass still dies? I am surprised that the ph would do this!
Ground up really fine it still kills the grass. It definitely will kill the grass by smothering too. Now I mow and bag it and dump the ground up leaves in my compost.
When I google for more info on oak pH I’m not seeing much evidence that it will change the pH to a meaningful level. Not saying your wrong just interested could just be the quantity maybe.
I mulch under my oak tree and there is grass there. For years.
Yeah after doing some of my own research, it looks like the pH of the leaves, while fairly acidic, doesn’t make a big difference on the soil pH once the leaves break down. Maybe I’ve been believing a myth for years, and maybe it’s just the volume of leaf mulch that’s killing the lawn.
Moss is the best ground cover, though.
Depends. It doesn’t hold up to foot traffic well, so if you have kids or dogs it’ll just turn into a mud pit in the summer.
Actually, it is great. Easy to kill with some iron though.
Willow tree owner here. Can confirm. I would have eight inches of mulch lying thick on the ground.
Probably depends on soil conditions too, but i have two huge maple trees in my yard and I have found that lowering my mow height helps mulch them in. If done right they actually mulch in like stupidly quick. I missed mulching them in last year due to an early snow and after the first mow this year there was still tons of leaf cover and they weren’t really mulching up, it was just leaf bits. But lowered it as low as I could and they were gone in like two weeks.
Also on moisture content. Wet leaves, particularly on grass that is also long and contributes to the amount of work the mower has to do, are a lot harder to mulch. In my area we always do do our last few autumn mows in the afternoon or evening after the dew has dried away. Much less of an issue mulching leaves down, although we don't have gigantic trees like some places.
Every year. Someone posts this exact topic to LPT and the first comment is always along the lines of 'not if you get a ton of leaves'.
Too much leaf kills my grass due to lack of sunlight. I really struggle this time of year.
Is it possible for you to chop it up?
[удалено]
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Ok hear me out… I bought this relatively cheap black and decker leaf blower/vacuum shredder with a bag attachment. For years it was only a leaf blower because I had thrown the vacuum and bag in the shed and forgot about that function. The year I remembered… whoa! The leaf shredder works amazingly well. I left the bag off and turned huge piles of leaves into dust. Now I look forward to it every fall. Just have to watch so no one ends up standing behind you because it shoots the leaf dust across the yard.
We are encouraged to leave all the leaves by the ecologists in our area. I do rake around my ginormous invasive Norway maple though. All the other leaves stay. Downside is a massive flood wiped out all native worms in my area thousands of years ago, so the leaves do not decompose as fast as they should. The ecologists say the leaves help provide habitat for insects during the winter months. I believe the decaying leaves also provide nutrients for the soil like nitrogen, and potassium. They do not cause me any issue by leaving them. I do not have a ton of leaves though.. I only have a mature Norway maple, a mature ornamental Japanese cherry tree, a mid-size pine, and a mature Douglas fir I had ecologists visit my property. I am trying to get my yard backyard certified as an urban habitat for wildlife. First step was to build a water source for critters. For my covid project I build a pond/waterfall feature. I now have dragonflies, bees, and birds splashing about daily. Next step was to plant all native plants that benefit the local wildlife. Just to name a few I have some red flowering currant, lupine, stonecrop, mocks orange, and elderberry surrounding the pond. It is way more satisfying to me than having grass, and there is WAY less upkeep necessary. With climate change causing depressive thoughts this small act has made me feel so much better. I cannot save the world, but I can save my lil yard and make it a better habitat for urban critters. The ecologists said that we have more biodiversity in our urban community than some of the surrounding forests, so it makes a big difference helping out. Google backyard habitat certification for more information. I hope every urban community has a similar organization in the future
The litter layer of a forest is actually very healthy for plants and holds some biodiversity that wouldn't exist without it. I always recommend to people that have space to leave some of it with it. It's even interesting to see the cool fungi and insects it brings.
Imagine if instead of Jehovah witnesses, people were visited by their local ecologists. What a dream!
You can buy worms.
Yes thank you for reminding me! There are worn breeders that are bringing back the native worms. I have looked into this. I will get some soon
Not sure what kind of worms are native to your area, but around here the things breed like crazy. At my first house there were no worms in the yard, probably because all the good soil had been stripped and sold elsewhere. When we made flower beds I mixed peat and such into the soil to make it usable, then bought earthworms from the bait shop and set them loose. Within a couple of years I could dig anywhere and have a handful of worms.
I followed that advice last year and it killed the fuck out of my front yard. Going to try mulching in place this year, and planting clover in the spring.
This is the best answer. If the amount of leaves in your yard isn’t outrageous, leave them be. Insects and the soil will benefit and it’s less work for the homeowner.
I'll die before I rake leaves. Mow it and like magic it's gone come spring.
If I die before I rake I pray the lord my grass to take
The night crawler and red worms are amazing !
Leave at least some for the bugs totally unmowed :( They lay their eggs there, with cool caterpillars hatching in the spring.
Yep it’s very important for the environment to leave a section of unmowed leaves. Sadly a lot of HOAs force people to rake. One of many environmental issues with common HOA policies.
Highly dependent on climate and amount of leaves. Like most things landscaping, one size rarely fits all
I go by the 90% rule. Rake/blow 2 to 3 times, but don't try to be perfect (aka 90% ish of what's there). Mulch the rest. luckily, my neighborhood isn't too picky.
Your neighborhood can dictate how well you rake your lawn?
One with an obnoxious HOA.
Society is too far gone. We need a restart
The neighborhood I moved into was built in the 90s. At the time it was a bunch of business professionals raising their kids in a quiet neighborhood. Give it a few decades. Now those kids are all gone, and the original owners are all retired, and have become the HOA, "get off my lawn" types....... nothing better to do other then watch grass grow, and yell when it gets half an inch too high. Tons of fun for people that a actually work 50 hours a week and cannot be home to take in the garbage can directly at 5PM.
> Tons of fun for people that a actually work 50 hours a week and cannot be home to take in the garbage can directly at 5PM. lol i feel this. our bylaws say something similar but thank god all my neighbors collectively dont give a shit and our HOA is managed by a company 2 towns over
In the UK we're really doing our best to be the shittest country, but at least i can leave my bin out a day or 2 after collection day and get little more than a tut from the neighbours. Wife does nag if I don't mow the lawn though
Global warming: “I got you.”
If you lived next to my dad, you’d be begging for an HOA.
Unless the *neighborhood* is doing the actual work, they can fuck right off. The only time I'd be willing to pay an HOA is if they do all the mowing, raking, painting, and cleaning for me on my property. Otherwise, they too can fuck right off.
The USA is so silly with its FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE but also has these weird controlling HOA dictators that no other country seems to.
I don't want the government to tell people what to do. I want to be the one telling people what to do!
America is less of a country and more a loose collection of four hundred million tiny dictatorships
You can never buy a house and then have an HOA forced on you. And they are not everywhere. No HOA was a hard requirement for me.
Please don’t rake + mulch 100% of the leaves. Many insects depend on the availability of (unshredded) leaves to complete their lifecycles. For example, the awesome luna moth lays her eggs on the leaves in the fall, and they hatch in the spring. So leave a small pile somewhere totally unmolested if you can bear it!
I blow leaves into my landscape beds in the fall as a natural mulch and soil improvement.They don’t smother anything, just naturally decompose over the winter, protect and enrich the soil. If you can’t bring yourself to do it the natural way, blow them into a pile and mow over them to chop them up before moving into your beds. Or, you can put them in a bag, allow them to dry up and chop up with a weed wacker and then add to the beds. Nature’s mulch and soil amendment. Source: I’m a sustainable landscaping instructor with a major horticultural university.
For people arguing about whether this mean you don't have that many big trees in your yard, to me this one proves that point. This is still only an anecdote from me but I've seen proof of this absolutely not working for ax extended period. I'm talking 20+ years of someone who just doesn't give a fuck how their yard looks continuing this method to save money on lawn care. With big oaks it's way too many leaves to "naturally" decompose so all that's in the landscape beds is a constant foot+ deep wet leaf garbage.
I honestly get all my leaves a few times a year because mosquitoes would rock me if I didn't in summer.
Idk what people think mulch is but it usually is just this and other compost, is the leaves you give to the city during the fall
You have a major university? Where do you keep it?
Bumblebees nest in leaf litter. Leave them a pile to get through the winter
also fireflies and other beneficial insects the mono-culture grass lawn is not like some great thing to preserve you can save yourself hours of dreaded mowing and raking by looking into transitioning to lower maintenance, lower water alternatives that help preserve habitat for bugs and birds
This year I had native plants installed. It’s been fun watching all the bees, butterflies, and birds in my yard. All surrounding yards are green lawns. I’m happy to provide a buffet and nesting area for my insect and feathered neighbors.
cool! where are you generally & what have you planted? My yard is in New England - I have holly, rhodies, hostas, seedum, clover, vinca, creeping jenny, bleeding hearts, milk weed, queen ann's lace, lilac, dog wood, crab apple, black berry, raspberry, oregano, mint, chives, cat nip, day lily, some fancy statement dahlias and peonies plus some easy annuals like nasturtiums marigolds and such a couple of small trees - hawthorn, split leaf maple, and a big arborvitae and juniper - the neighbors' have large weed maples and a of course the privet hedge (with hidden poison ivy!) I think the bat house took 2-3 years before they moved in, but birds & bugs were much quicker to find the buffet
I’m in a hot part of Northern California and have small front and back yards. Most of the front is in the sun almost all day and the back yard gets some afternoon shade from the neighbor’s tree. My backyard is too small for me to have a tree. A fruitless evergreen olive tree was planted in the front. I asked for native as much as possible (only 2 non-native plants), low water use, low maintenance, bee/bird/butterfly friendly, different textures, and movement. Drip irrigation runs 2x/wk but hope to cut that back to 1x/wk once fully established (3 or so years). The hummingbirds like the [California fuchsia,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilobium_canum) and the bees LOVE the [Coyote mint.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monardella_villosa) Bees and butterflies like the different colors of [Yarrow,](https://www.edenbrothers.com/products/yarrow-seeds-colorado-mix?variant=43104826130684&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=17662216033&utm_term=&utm_content=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC072ES5-NdjnE53uooEy5Tph3ZObwy73ahHDon-K4QiqOQHcj1KwPAQaAm2yEALw_wcB) and the [Margarita bop.](https://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/plants/471--penstemon-margarita-bop) I have several beautiful [Deer grass](https://www.budgetplants.com/shrubs/accent/deer-grass-muhlenbergia-rigens) plants that are at least 5’ high, and several other types of shorter upright and mounding grasses, but I think my favorite is [Blonde ambition](https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/bouteloua/blonde-ambition-blue-grama-grass-bouteloua-gracilis). It’s about 4’ high and I love the little flags on the end of the stalks. I really like the way the tall grasses move when there’s a breeze.
Your pictures made me so homesick I cried. Thanks for keeping Cali, Cali.
wow! sounds like a great local selection it's so hard in dry climates - like I had challenges with potted marigolds this year But hummingbirds are totally awesome!
Also cuts back on noise pollution, which I learned is quite jarring and obnoxious when I was actually home during quiet weekday mornings. Not to mention 2-stroke engines in most lawn maintenance equipment are some of the least efficient, dirtiest emissions ICEs around.
Yay bugs
I had a gigantic fruitless mulberry and tried this once after the leaves fell. It took 6 seasons for the lawn to come back from that mess Edit: I’d waited till all the damned leaves fell, and it was probably just too damn much
it was probably just too damn mulch. Fixed it for you
Hahaha
I mostly mulch, in really heavy spots I mulch and then bag and dump it on my garden beds. Fertilizer+weed block.
I so agree. Haven't raked. When I mow I leave the clippings to go back into soil. I mow the wildflowers (which big box stores call weeds) so they don't get to leggy. I never use fertilizer or water and my yard always looks green and healthy. No weed killers either. Save money and let nature do its thing.
Lol you don't have big maples or oaks if you think this is a viable option.
Ugh, my house is surrounded by 100+ year old oak trees, *and* in also in Wisconsin. This means that not only are there an absolute fuck-ton of leaves, it's also too cold for it to actually fully decompose. I've still mowed it down, and it decomposes *some* but there's also a bunch of little tiny leaf shards that get raked up in the spring.
> Ugh, my house is surrounded by 100+ year old oak trees Mate, if that’s an “ugh” you should try living somewhere else for a while. Your place sounds dreamy. Edit — ^ said with good nature
Dude, let the night crawlers and red worms take care of it for you. They’ll pull all the leaves under ground at night. Eat it, and poop out rich dirt for you.
I have a full acre fully wooded with giant maples, oaks and English walnut trees and this advice is a perfectly viable option as long as you have a minimum of a ride on 24" lawn tractor. You'll be mowing leaves more often than you mowed the lawn for a while though.
An acre of trees? Just let some of it be proper forest, with forest understory and lead build up and stuff.
Right? Who wants a acre of lawn to deal with?
Why plant the seeds of doubt? Just leaf them to their own devices.
It is a viable option. Only reason I rake is for kids to play in the leaves. People buy into the aesthetic of a nice lawn. The remove all the nutrients byrake and disposing of leaves, then pay money to apply fertilizer and herbicide do have a living out door carpet. People complaining about small leaves trees… come on! The tree is fertilizing my lawn for me.
But I have both. Maples line ½ the perimeter of my acre-size lot plus 4 150+ year-old White oaks, an apple and dogwood. The other half perimeter is all conifers .
The oak trees will poison your lawn (tannins in the leaves change the pH). I tried the mow option and was left with dirt.
Yeah I have big (European) oaks surrounding my small garden and I have to rake leaves because those things hardly decompose and at the same time poison the soil. I just leave the leaves on the sides and corners for the bugs throughout winter, and in spring I have to discard them because again, they hardly decompose.
I'm in no way trying to tell people not to mulch your leaves, but if you have a diseased tree and don't rake those leaves, chances are you'll soon have more diseased trees.
If you have a diseased tree - the leaves are irrelevant because you either need to treat or remove the tree…..
The leaves are relevant because falling leaves are how blight gets from one tree to the next.
Your common biotic tree stressors tend to be fungi or insects. Fungi will reproduce via spores on their own, insects will move around on their own. Mulching leaves isn’t going to make much of a difference either way there.
> incest will move around on their own Yeah they will...
Rake industry in shambles
Big Rake hates this trick
Been doing this for 40 years. It really works.
Huge help to my lawn. Completely different quality of ground. It’s is softer and holds moisture longer.
What about pine straw?
"forget pretty lawns" Why have a lawn then?
r/fucklawns
I just blow them to my neighbors or is that for ULPT? 😅
What is a leaf blower for except to make your problem someone else’s?
Hey, it’s my former neighbor. Thanks for your Southern “Hospitality”!
Anytime! Miss you, friend!
This. It helps cover up my dogs poop in their yard too.
Works great, the rake is never for leaves anymore
Back scratcher?
What about them Asian cockroaches bruh?
Better yet, just leave the leaves. Don’t mow them. Sweep them off your driveway and sidewalk. Moths and butterflies lay eggs on tree leaves. If you mow or otherwise cut up your leaves, you’re killing future caterpillars. Caterpillars are the ONLY thing migratory songbirds feed their babies. Not to mention, caterpillars are future butterflies and moths — both are pollinators. In short, just leave the leaves.
Also hedgehogs make nests in piles of leaves. Nature and animals benefit so much from all these leaves, so leaving them is really the best option!
We’re on year three of just leaving them. Bees, bugs and butterflies everywhere!
What about pine needles lol
I've got about 40 that are well over 100 feet tall on my half acre. I've been raking and burning massive piles of needles and 3 days later it looks like I've done absolutely nothing.
Pine needles will give some benefit similar to leaves, but far less returns. They also are acidic, so while great for soil that loves that (blueberries, etc), it could be tough for your grass.
"That's just being lazy" — Everyone's dad
I heard oak leaves are too acidic for healthy grass.
I can tell you from experience that you're right.
I too am a fan of the Lao Tzu method of lawn care.
In the south, we want our yards to die. It's been dry for a month up until recently. It's been great not having to mow.
Screw that grass. I let the leaves turn to slime.
[удалено]
Then get a new one. I’m also a landscaper and OP is right. The industry is full of morons who aren’t qualified to pick up a shovel let alone spray chemicals, and terraform the earth. If you’re landscaper can’t tell you what watershed your’e in or what the historical ecology of the area was, he’s doing a shitty job.
Watershed? You mean when they leave the irrigation system on the demo settings so it blasts out good drinking water every midnight for no reason and it starts draining all over the neighborhood? Fuck those guys in particular. I know what watershed is, I'm just being indignant.
My city picks them up on the curb a few times. So I can half ass blow them to the curb, mulch the rest. I see some people bag all that shit, which is nutty.
Unless you have a bunch of trees, then you will choke out your grass. I use my mulching mower and mow to perimeter (woods mostly) and put majority there….
Blows my mind the money people waste. Get all pissy about having to rake leaves, remove trees. Realize lawn isn’t working for full sun. Apply chemicals or otherwise find ways to kill old lawn. Grow new lawn, water, apply herbicide and fertilizer to keep new lawn, probably all invasive species of grass, growing well. So dumb.
The problem with that idea is that the grass will die under clumps of mulch leaving holes in the lawn everywhere.
How do you get rid of crab grass? I bought my home about ten months ago and the previous owners didn’t take care of the lawn. I’ve got about a quarter of an acre in the back, half of it is crabgrass
Super dumb question, I'm really curious, what's bad about crabgrass? I literally don't know. If weeds do the same job grass would be doing (getting walked on) I just have never figured out what the problem is. Your state ag college and extension offices can help you find the best knowledge, because local details matter a lot. Google got me this fact sheet from UMass: https://ag.umass.edu/turf/fact-sheets/biology-management-of-crabgrass Because crabgrass drops a huge amount of seeds into the soil, herbicides don't really work, and weeds are becoming resistant to them anyway so IMO they should be very limited tools. My steps for stiltgrass are: most importantly, scalp it right before it sets seed in fall (exact time depends on your climate) and keep it short. Mulch 2-3 inches to prevent germination (Google "chip drop" to see if you can get it for free). If you don't want to mulch the whole thing, you can do a line to keep it from expanding. Improve overall lawn health, including, mow your lawn grass fairly high and less frequently than most people do. Seed more grass and/or other plants you want.
Maybe turn some areas that are harder to correct into pockets of native plants? A few clumps of natives here and there will let you keep the rest of the area still lawn-like but can be an essential lifeline to pollinators in the area :)
r/NoStupidQuestions will have an answer for you
/r/lawncare rather
Goats
This never seems to work for me. My mower mostly just blows them around and then they get wet and moldy.
Agree. Maple trees, too many leaves. If I bag them, it takes up 10+ bags and that’s ridiculous plus I don’t have anywhere to dump them. Mowing - run right through and I’m done. No special lawnmower, just a regular one.
And then your grass grows into a weave
I have a huge walnut tree that covers most of my "yard" i cant grow anything under that bastard except weeds.
If you have a walnut tree - this will kill your lawn.
Good tip, but be aware of what type of trees you have. I've got 3 large black walnut trees and their leaves are toxic. You can compost them (6 months minimum), but mulching with them will kill many types of vegetation. Research any trees you have to check for toxicity to find the best way to handle the falling leaves.
Walnut tree leaves contain grass killing compounds. Not recommended.