Do you rake leaves?

[Luv Bunnies]

We live in California. Our former house had a huge maple tree next door that dropped tons of leaves over a few weeks each fall. The wind would blow them into our yard and make a big mess. The neighbor's son used to blow them out of our yard and back towards theirs so he could bag them. I thought that was very nice of him. Then the house sold and became a rental and gardeners they hired just cleaned up their yard. We hired our own gardeners, but still had to clean up leaves between services, at least to get them off the sidewalk so people walking by wouldn't slip on them.

Fast forward to this past June when we sold the house and moved to a townhome. Our complex has tons of trees that drop leaves and pine needles everywhere. The best part is that they magically disappear every week or so when the gardeners come through. The complex was painted just after we moved in, and we just got a notice saying they would be coming around to clean our gutters. Yes, we pay for all these services through our monthly fee. It's just nice not to have to hire people and schedule everything ourselves. It just happens! We do have to sweep the leaves off our enclosed patios ourselves, but that's easy enough.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

I have in the past because the next door neighbor's oak tree rained tons of leaves onto our front lawn, but the tree was chopped down a few months ago, so no more raking for me!

 

[bethbuchall]

We still rake. When the leaves first begin to fall and when they are nearing the end, we can use the mower and mulch them. For a while, we can use the mower and bag them and put them in our compost pile. But eventually there are too many to deal with like that. We need to rake them up or we would have even less grass than we do now. We bag them in the paper leaf bags and a neighbor takes them to an empty lot a friend of his owns to dump them. He brings our bags back for re-use. If he didn't do that, the town would collect them and take them to a town composting site, but we wouldn't get our bags back. Right now I have 20 bags sitting at the curb, and the trees aren't nearly finished yet.

 

[DVC-Don]

When I lived up north, I would either blow them into the woods behind the house or drive the lawn tractor over them which vacuumed them up into bins that I dumped into the woods. Here in Florida occasionally a palm falls on the lawn and the HOA crew will get it.

 

[Hrhpd]

The girl scouts here run a leave raking fundraiser. They will come rake leaves for a very nominal fee. Win Win, I get my leaves raked and I get to give the money to a good cause and they get to make money for their troops.

As for shoveling (mentioned by L&L Fan,) if we don't have our sidewalks completely cleared within 12 hours of the end of a storm, we will incur a very hefty fine from the town. Best to keep shoveling throughout the storm to keep up with the accumulation.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We always mulch until there are too many leaves for that to work well but a couple years ago we got a leaf blower (battery operated and the battery is the same as our lawn mower) so when the leaves get too much we'll blow the leaves into our backyard and then into the woods on our property so no more raking

 

[disykat]

we mow or leaf blow and dump them all into the woods behind our house.

 

[bluezy]

Nope. We have a 4 acre lot -- 3.5 of it is yard. Way too much to rake. We let the leaves fall where they may and and let Mother Nature do her thing. All of our neighbors are on 2-4 acres and I don't think any of them remove the leaves from their yard.

 

[Skippy918]

We have the kids do it now. Leaving the leaves on the lawn kills the grass so we have to rake. Our rake season is spring when the live oaks drop their leaves.

 

[SteveH]

Blower to get them out of the bushes and beds, then combo of rake and mow. I don't bother with the front yard, we're known for our winds and they pretty much make them disappear

 

[DisneyHardin]

Where we live now, we don't have a lot of leaves, so we just mow over them. Where we used to live, we would rake them out to the curb and the city would send a truck by a few times a fall to suck them up and dispose of them.

 

[gtpoohbear]

We live in a townhouse, and are not supposed to be responsible for any yardwork. About once a year, they will come through with the blowers. However, the walkway to our front door acts like a wind tunnel and we end up with quite a few blowing in there, even though we don't have that many trees around. So I usually sweep up the ones that have accumulated every couple of months.

Before this, we lived in a house with a good sized backyard. But we only had one small tree, and never enough leaves to bother with.

DS has been wanting to find a big leaf pile to jump into. He did it once as a kid and has been enamoured with the idea ever since. Most areas around us just don't have enough trees to accumulate that many on the ground, though.

 

[eileenjez]

When we lived in North Dakota we raked the leaves and left them on the burm by the road. The city would come around with a big vac and suck them up. Here in North Carolina we don't bother since we lost the 4 trees we had in a hurricane.

 

[marthachick]

We have 11 acres and only 1/2 to 3/4 acre is cleared. The rest is wooded so we have quite a few leaves. We usually mow the yard a couple of times each fall to mulch them and blow them to the perimeter.

 

[RedAngie]

I personally don't. The lawn service does. Leaves really haven't started to fall here yet, but they will by early November. Some still-green leaves fell during last week's storm but not enough to rake.

The service picks up most leaves with a riding mower and takes them away. They do use rakes and blowers to get in between the shrubs.

 

[soccerdad72]

Combination of rake, blow and mow, depending on the part of the lawn. Our city comes and picks up leaves on the curb a couple times a season, but often, the leaves in the backyard I just blow or rake back into the woods behind our house.

 

[RangerPooh]

We rake them. When we moved into our current home there was easily two+ years of piled up pine needles and leaves in the back yard. The bugs were terrible because of them. We didn't realize how deep they were in some places until we started raking.

We rake the front yard because the neighbors front tree blows them into our yard. We will let them be for a while, but after a certain point it gets to be too much. Last fall when our neighbor was hospitalized our family went and ranked their yard becuase the whole tree seems to deleaf during that two week period.

 

[disney junky]

Yes. Rake them. Blow them. The township picks them up each Monday through Jan.
As a kid, we have 12 acres, about a third of it maple tress. We would rake them into big piles, jump in them, then under adult supervision, burn them. Those were the days. We burned trash. Burned leaves. I love the smell of burning leaves.

 

[North of Mouse]

After the recent Nor’easter we just had here in MA, a lot of the leaves have begun falling. This got me wondering if people still rake the leaves in their yards? We don’t and haven’t for years. None of our neighbors do either. The yards are all large (over an acre). We all have ride on mowers we use to mulch them. I use a leaf blower for the flower beds and then dh rides over them with the mower. It makes such quick work of them.

What about you? Raking or mowing in your neck of the woods?

Neither - dh keeps them blown - lots of woods to blow them from our yard. Going over them with the lawn tractor would destroy and smother our lawn as we have so many.

 

[hyperballad]

Nope waste of time. I leave them as nutrients for the grass