Leaf Fall, composting and special offer!

[floss2205]

I have a huge oak tree and a silver birch, both of which overhang my back garden so at this time of year all I spend my time in the garden doing is picking up leaves then shoving them in the composter.

Then last week I found a special offer on a leaf blower on a Facebook page for a business that sells leaf blowers and vacuums (seddondirect). What used to take me a couple of hours now takes only 30 minutes!

For anyone wanting a quicker solution to hand picking leaves at this time of year I would seriously recommend this solution and grab yourselves the discount by finding the company on Facebook - made it cheaper for me!

[Brooklyn1]

Oaks typically hold their leaves until spring. Birch leaves are small, thin, drop late, and by then are mere wisps that simply disappear from the wind. I never rake leaves, the same one who puts them there takes them away.

Leaves were about half down yesterday, they'll blow away before the first snow:

[Bill who putters]

spring. The Black and reds are almost all down now. I rake in /blow in about another 2 weeks here. Been known to have piles of leaves about for kids aka Trick or treaters to stomp thru.

[despen]

Here we have Tulip Poplar.

Giant, leaf covered, Tulip Poplar. Leaves come down like snow when it rains, (like today).

Removing leaves usually spans a period of 5 weekends, with at least 1 full day devoted to the task.

The lawn services use a combination of back pack blowers and walk behind blowers. These can get the leaves to the curb where they either rake or bring in a vacuum truck.

For stubborn homeowners (like me), the back pack blower is pretty much required. A walk behind would help but I don't have one. Half the job is getting the piles of leaves into the back yard for compost.

Right now I'm using a wheeled Rubber Maid 45 gallon trash can. I'd like something about twice the size with a larger opening, but so far I haven't found anything.

[despen]

Well, just found one:

$465, wow.

[Una]

I rake leaves onto a big tarp, then drag the tarp. Saves 5-10 trips with a wheelie and all the loading and unloading that goes with the wheelie.

Una

[Brooklyn1]

The times I've had a sizable amount of leaves I'd use a leaf rake or blower to put them into a pile, than pass over them a few times with a rotary mower to chop them up. Then there was far less volume to bag/haul. Once deposited the chopped leaves are far less likely to blow about.

[despen]

Ungainly and doesn't hold any more than a 45 Gal container which can be stuffed.

[Nil]

On 04 Nov 2010, [e-mail] (Una) wrote in rec.gardens:

Me, too. There's a woodsy area at the back of my yard, so I just drag the many tarps-full of leaves up there. Those big piles compact flat by spring - you wouldn't know there were 20+ years of leaves up there.