sharlag
Drama Llama
I like my artsy with a little bit of fartsy.
Posts: 6,574
Location: Kansas
Jun 26, 2014 12:57:48 GMT
|
Post by sharlag on Oct 17, 2016 22:00:45 GMT
nothing... I used to rake them,then one year that didnt happen, that winter/spring/summer my yard looked the same as the years I had raked so I stopped.. VERY interesting! *stroking chin thoughtfully*
|
|
|
Post by myshelly on Oct 17, 2016 22:00:59 GMT
See, we don't have snow here and it's so hot still when the leaves are falling that they just get super brittle and crumble up so it's just not an issue. The oak leaves don't crumble up like maple or other tree leaves even if they stay dry. Oak trees are the kind that make acorns, right? We don't have any problems with those leaves at all, but ok.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 1, 2024 8:03:08 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 22:44:26 GMT
We still have to mow thanks to an unusually warm fall. Right now, the leaves just get mowed up and bagged with the rest of the grass. DH was saying with the new mower that has a bag on it, he might just keep mowing it all up until the yard waste pick up stops. Our next door neighbor who actually "owns" the two trees that dump the most leaves in our yard stops raking and mowing sometime in October so he gets to clean up rotting leaves in the spring.
|
|
|
Post by lisacharlotte on Oct 17, 2016 22:49:00 GMT
Sycamore leaves are huge and like leather. Luckily there aren't any of those on my street. The oak leaves on my street dry up like all the others they just do it late in the year when it too cold to bother.
|
|
|
Post by crazy4scraps on Oct 17, 2016 22:52:46 GMT
The oak leaves don't crumble up like maple or other tree leaves even if they stay dry. Oak trees are the kind that make acorns, right? We don't have any problems with those leaves at all, but ok. Yes. And I can tell you after over 30 years of having to rake, mow, mulch and move them, they are a problem. From southernstates.com: But ok.
|
|
|
Post by mollycoddle on Oct 17, 2016 22:54:34 GMT
I am allergic to leaf mold, so I pay someone to deal with my leaves.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 1, 2024 8:03:08 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 22:56:30 GMT
My neighborhood is a "let it blow" neighborhood.
|
|
|
Post by 950nancy on Oct 17, 2016 23:02:48 GMT
I don't understand why fallen leaves are in the same category as trash. It's just not that big of a deal to me. They'll either get blown away or decompose eventually. I can see really thick piles of them killing people's grass, you know-- smothering them. And they just seem to blow down into the sewers and clog them up so when it rains, there is flooding. We have many forty foot trees in all of our neighbors' yards and we get a lot of leaves. We don't have a single tree in our back yard. Thankfully everyone close by rakes them. We still get quite a few blowing leaves from those that don't rake their yards, but our back yard would be so gross. I do wish everyone would rake at least once to keep the drains leaf free. ETA: One May we were cleaning up the leaves that had blown in the corner of our yard. I reached down and pulled up a gigantic snoozing snake. Now I have to blow the leaves out of that area. He took a good minute or two to wake up and slither away. He liked the leaves apparently.
|
|
eastcoastpea
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,252
Jun 27, 2014 13:05:28 GMT
|
Post by eastcoastpea on Oct 17, 2016 23:21:41 GMT
We have minimal leaves from our trees, but a ton from our neighbors trees. We're very good about trying to keep them picked up, and our neighbors are not. Luckily, they have maple trees. Maple leaves are so much easier to pick up than oak leaves. Oak leaves just seem to mat down around here when they aren't picked up. They are also the ones that seem more likely to build up at the storm drains. I think that's because they aren't as flexible as the other leaves when they fall.
My husband mulches them for as long as he can, and then we have to start bagging them. Then he brings them to the dump.
The town has two days when they pick up the leaves in the fall. One time there was a freakishly early snow storm so my one neighbor had their bags of leaves on their tree belt for the entire winter. Of course, when they tried to pick them up the bottoms stuck to the ground. It was a nasty mess.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 1, 2024 8:03:08 GMT
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 23:25:32 GMT
We live in a very leafy area. It's impossible to keep our leaves from blowing into other yards, and vice versa. We rake and bag as we're able. Some years we do better than others
|
|
|
Post by gramasue on Oct 17, 2016 23:30:02 GMT
We live in the country, so it's not an issue having leaves blow into a neighbour's yard - they're too far away. We usually mulch them with the ride-on lawn mower in the big front yard and the smaller back yard, but it's the tree that is a few feet from my side door that is a problem. The leaves fall all over the wooden deck outside the side door that we use all the time and you can't help but track them into the house. I hate that, so try to keep those ones picked up. When we have a bunch of them, we usually just do a burn.
|
|
|
Post by freecharlie on Oct 17, 2016 23:33:07 GMT
I pile them up in front of a Pea's garage. (I wish I could remember who it was who had a neighbor doing that to her!) I was just getting ready to post that!
|
|
|
Post by warrior1991 on Oct 18, 2016 1:31:21 GMT
Our borough provides leaf pickup - we just rake them next to the street and every two weeks from now until the middle of December a truck with a big vacuum hose comes around to pick them up. ETA lol warrior1991 I must have been typing as you were posting. Do you live in central PA? MorningPersonlol. No, southeastern Minnesota. A town north of me does that too. Just not my town. One neighbor, doesn't do much with their leaves. Mulches them if they get to it before the snow. The house on the other side is not lived in, so they don't care about the leaves. However the owner of that house, trimmed his huge oak tree earlier this year, so there are hardly any leaves on that side of the house except for my red maple.
|
|
stella68
Shy Member
Posts: 15
Jun 26, 2014 3:28:01 GMT
|
Post by stella68 on Oct 18, 2016 1:49:23 GMT
I won't be picking up a single leaf this time around! Nope, not doing it! They are starting to build a new subdivision down the road on a property that used to be a pretty run down farm. Critters everywhere Already had a snake in my garage, plenty of reports of scorpions and fire ants are out of control this year. I will just learn to love the more "natural" look. The yard man will come every 3 weeks to take care of the mess.
|
|
kelly8875
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,391
Location: Lost in my supplies...
Oct 26, 2014 17:02:56 GMT
|
Post by kelly8875 on Oct 18, 2016 2:02:55 GMT
I have a small backyard and about 7 100-year old oak trees overhanging the yard. And 3 in my front yard. You can imagine the leaves. There is no way I could leave them there, the piles are enormous. The do get mowed on mowing day if they're in the way.
Our city has a "yardy" cart, and we can fill that and it's picked up once a week on trash day. And this time a year, every other week we can take leaves to the curb and the city leaf pick-up vacuum will come collect them. This goes until the 1st week of December, thank God.
|
|
|
Post by Zee on Oct 18, 2016 2:10:50 GMT
I had a neighbor who would furiously blow the leaves from our trees back into the street each fall day. I got huge satisfaction out of seeing the wind blow them right back into his yard, because he was a dick. We had something like 12 trees, containing them all in windy Iowa wasn't even remotely possible all of the time. Nor did I care about his stupid yard or his stupid leaf blower. Or his stupid face.
One time his dog got loose and ran into my yard and promptly peed on one of my statues. He walked over and without even saying hi or apologizing (this was shortly after he moved in, and we had never met) he demanded to know if that was my dog that was running loose in the street the day before. It most certainly wasn't, and I'm not sure how he even got pants on over those big brass balls asking ME about MY dog being loose when his fat stupid dog was pissing ON MY STATUE. So you best bet I didn't give any shits about him the rest of the time we lived there.
God, it feels good to get het up about that again eight years later. It's one of those stories I still savor, year after year. LOL
|
|
kate
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,524
Location: The city that doesn't sleep
Site Supporter
Jun 26, 2014 3:30:05 GMT
|
Post by kate on Oct 18, 2016 2:14:09 GMT
No trees, no leaves, no yard. #urbanliving They are lovely in Central Park!
|
|
|
Post by betty on Oct 18, 2016 2:42:06 GMT
To keep the HOA nazis from sending me hate mail...I very diligently go out there and pick them up by hand..one by one. I do not miss leaf raking at all!
|
|
amym
Junior Member
Posts: 63
Jun 26, 2014 17:48:35 GMT
|
Post by amym on Oct 18, 2016 2:51:33 GMT
We have four massive oak trees that drop millions of leaves, I really don't think that is an exaggeration, it's crazy! We have a landscaper that comes weekly to take care of our yard and during leaf drop season, he fills our two yard waste cans and one of his own.
|
|
|
Post by ~summer~ on Oct 18, 2016 2:55:37 GMT
We have two huge trees in our front yard that drop a lot of leaves. I have a hybrid approach:
- a few times a week I sweep our front landing and front porch - mow and blow service comes every other week to do our entire property.
|
|
|
Post by anniefb on Oct 18, 2016 4:43:54 GMT
I have a large garden but fortunately most of the trees are evergreen. The leaves that do drop I rake into planted areas or compost.
|
|
|
Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Oct 18, 2016 11:07:37 GMT
We have lots of trees in our yard and most of them drop their leaves. But I'll take any kind of leaf over the stupid sticky, spiky balls that fall from the sweet gum trees. Whomever thought it was a good idea to have those in a suburban yard should be executed.
|
|
|
Post by anxiousmom on Oct 18, 2016 11:41:56 GMT
One would think that central Florida doesn't have a fall season, but we do. It may be warmer than the rest of the world (although I hear that there is going to be record breaking heat in all kinds of places this week) but our oak trees are still dropping leaves, the pine trees are dropping their pine needles, and my drake elm is dropping all kinds of crap every where. We also have trees that are changing leaf colors. I mow twice a week so the leaves get sucked up in the mower bag, then dumped in either a spot for mulching or in a bag for the city to pick up. When the weather turns, I still mow once a week or so, so what ever drops get mowed up. My biggest complaint is the magnolia tree. Those leaves are like thick cardboard and while the do get mowed over, sometimes they don't get crunched up. They sit there mocking me, daring me to rake them up instead of mowing. I love a pretty magnolia tree-particularly when it is blooming, but after almost 18 years of dealing with it's leaves, I love them in other people's yards so much more.
|
|
howjudiofyou
Junior Member
Posts: 80
Location: Niagara Falls, NY
Jun 26, 2014 21:37:54 GMT
|
Post by howjudiofyou on Oct 18, 2016 13:10:15 GMT
We have a giant city-owned Sycamore tree in front of our house. I despise that tree with a passion. It is messy year-round. It drops puff balls in the spring that explode and stick everywhere. All summer it drops twigs and branches. Now in the fall, it sheds its bark in sheets. The leaves don't drop until after the first snow. We have called the city many times to come trim the tree because it overhangs our roof, clogs our gutters, and knocks the phone line off our house during wind storms. Our electric company comes every few years and trims because the power lines are right in the tree, but they do a quick butcher job only around the lines. I wish the city would just cut the damn thing down already.
We also live across the street from a school that has many old large trees that blow leaves into our yard. I could rake everyday and easily fill 10 bags. An hour later, it would be covered again. Our city won't pick up bagged leaves, and they schedule their leaf pickups in September and early October, before most of the trees drop. We mulch them with the mower a few times and then just let the wind blow the rest away. Whatever is left in the spring, we burn in our fire pit.
We have a storm drain at the end of our driveway. We do clear the leaves from that daily or else the street will flood.
|
|
|
Post by birdy on Oct 18, 2016 13:24:43 GMT
We only have 1 big tree in our yard and we just mulch the leaves each week when we mow. One year when the kids were little, we did rake so they could play in them. Our other trees aren't full grown yet and so not as many leaves. We just let them fall and they usually blow away.
Our neighbor cut down a huge beautiful tree in their front yard just so they wouldn't have to deal with the leaves. Now they get full sun in their windows all afternoon long. I would have given anything for that tree!!!
|
|
scrappert
Prolific Pea
RefuPea #2956
Posts: 7,811
Location: Milwaukee, WI area
Jul 11, 2014 21:20:09 GMT
|
Post by scrappert on Oct 18, 2016 13:24:54 GMT
We have one tiny tree at the curb that will drop leaves, but otherwise, we have not trees with leaves (we have 2 huge big ugly pine trees that are going to be cut down next month). The leaves we get are from the neighbors. We will likely only rake a couple of times toward the end. We then put that out at the curb for the city to pick up. There won't be much, on huge tree is an ash so the leave are the little tiny ones that just blow away.
|
|
|
Post by mikklynn on Oct 18, 2016 13:40:47 GMT
I have four huge trees that drop lots of leaves. Fortunately, I have a lawn service that mows each week, so they just get mulched up.
DH used to drive me crazy insisting we rake each weekend. Then he got sick and insisted I continue. Something has to be done or we end up with snow mold and grossness in the spring here in Minnesota. I overruled him and hired a yard service. Best money spent, ever!
|
|
|
Post by crazy4scraps on Oct 18, 2016 14:03:00 GMT
We have a giant city-owned Sycamore tree in front of our house. I despise that tree with a passion. It is messy year-round. It drops puff balls in the spring that explode and stick everywhere. All summer it drops twigs and branches. Now in the fall, it sheds its bark in sheets. The leaves don't drop until after the first snow. We have called the city many times to come trim the tree because it overhangs our roof, clogs our gutters, and knocks the phone line off our house during wind storms. Our electric company comes every few years and trims because the power lines are right in the tree, but they do a quick butcher job only around the lines. I wish the city would just cut the damn thing down already. I have a city tree story you will appreciate. Back when we lived in the city, there was a HUGE elm tree on the boulevard between our house and the neighbor's house. It was constantly dropping sticks and those stupid helicopters and every time there was a storm another big chunk of it would fall off. It was tall enough that if it fell, it was going to either take out one of our two houses. When we built our garage, we moved our driveway from one side of the house to the other. Not too long after that, the city decided to redo the curbs on our street so we petitioned the city to have the tree taken down. 1/3 of it was already gone, what was left looked like it was diseased and it prevented us and our neighbors from having a full width driveway apron at the street side. The city responded with, "Oh, sorry, no. Every tree is an entity of the city. The tree has to have a major problem for us to remove it." Ok, so come LOOK at the thing! They sent out their arborist who declared the tree was just fine. The curb guys come, pour the new curbs and the apron for our driveway, and it's a done deal. This is in the fall. THE VERY NEXT SPRING, someone from the city comes rolling by. Sees the obviously diseased tree and marks it for removal! Are you freaking KIDDING me? Yes, they cut down that damn tree, leaving a 4' wide triangle of mulch between our driveway apron and the neighbor's, where a lovely double apron spanning both of our adjacent driveways could have gone if they would have cut the stupid tree down six months earlier. We were all so mad.
|
|
|
Post by scrapsotime on Oct 18, 2016 14:10:04 GMT
We have lots of trees in our yard and most of them drop their leaves. But I'll take any kind of leaf over the stupid sticky, spiky balls that fall from the sweet gum trees. Whomever thought it was a good idea to have those in a suburban yard should be executed. Hate those stupid spiky balls. Damn ankle turners. We have a sweet gum in the front yard and that thing is coming down - hopefully in a few weeks.
|
|
|
Post by mrsscrapdiva on Oct 18, 2016 16:21:04 GMT
Our city has a special truck for Yard Waste Collection. It has to be in brown yard waste bags you get at Walmart/home depot or just in a barrel with a special sticker for yard waste. In the summer the come every other week for lawn clippings and then in the fall they come every week until November. Then they come again after Christmas for the Christmas trees.
My husband mulches a lot up, we rake too. We do not have any trees in our yard, but our neighbors do and of course the wind blows them into our yard. Some of our neighbors are huge about cleaning up leaves and some of them I see outside every weekend doing leave pickup. We have a few obsession neighbors that clean up leaves everyday. I can't imagine. A lot of people seem to have lawn companies that they pay to do a "fall cleanup" after most of the leaves have fallen. A lot of the companies use blowers to just blow them in a pile and then they have a truck that mulches them.
The neighborhood next to ours, on the other side of the elementary school has a HUGE amount of trees and leaves. It is nuts seeing how many barrels or bags (like 20+) these people put out. It is mind boggling to me because they will never be able to pickup all the leaves and by the first week in November, it is usually pretty windy and they are all just blowing around as they are trying to rake. ETA: this neighborhood I am talking about, the main streets are all names after trees, it is a very old neighborhood, a lot of the trees are huge!
|
|