Leaf Raking Etiquette?

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

It helps cut down on the neighbor-bitching that invariably comes along if you just leave the leaves.

Holy shit, there's people that do this? I'm not cut out for the 'burbs, that's for sure.

[mrswhyturn]

Here, the leaves get everywhere. We’re responsible for our property, the park strip in front that the city owns and, based on our neighborhood, the street by that park strip. We can’t blow or rake a bunch of stuff into the street so it has to be picked up, and we don’t have those city street cleaners. Usually, we all enjoy the leaves falling down and the kids jump around in them. Then, closer to when they all drop, everyone is out working like bees collecting/mulching them.


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[AdironRider]

Back when I did leaf cleanup in my yard I would put the bag on the mower and suck/mulch them up that way once a week. Our yard looked perfect throughout the fall.

Then I realized what a stupid waste of time that was because all of my neighbor’s leaves would just blow into our yard. So the next year I thought I’d wait until all the leaves in the neighborhood fell then pick em up with the mower. Well then it decided to get cold and rain for a month after which I had no interest in picking up leaves. Fast forward to spring and the leaves that had sat in place all winter created a million dead spots in the lawn that weeds and other undesirables took advantage of in the following weeks. I spent the next few months wasting time and money fixing that damned lawn all because of the previous fall’s leaves.

That’s when I decided to hire Elver and his crew to just pick the f’ing leaves up when they come down. I’ve been much happier since.

TL;DR, hire Elver to pick up the leaves.

Pretty much this. I mow through the fall with a bag. My toro ends up mulching in like 30% and bagging the rest. Work in the spring is reduced drastically vs just leaving them. My hood is all 1+ acre lots so my leaves are mine and the neighbors theirs though and fall is about a week here (aspen trees just dump everything the first breezy day). If you let the leaves get wet the raking / cleanup sucks much more so I try and stay on top of it and its easy breezy.

Now if only my dog would start shitting in the native grass and not the lawn it would look even better. She's kind of a princess about it though.

[swissiphic]

I ain't a greenthumb guy but my g.f. is and uses leaves for her garden beds for something. We have a pretty big resident canadian maple tree that hucks down a lot of leaves every fall. I used to rake the leaves and wheelbarrow them over to her garden pile, but figured out a new system this year. Once all the leaves were down, did the final lawn mow with the self powered mower. Tilted the unit with a steep forward attack angle so the front lip of mower dug under most of the leaves and bulldozed strips of em to the end of yard. Angled each pass so they all piled into a nice heap for easy scooping and wheelbarrowing over to her garden. Leaves not caught by front of mower got run over and mulched. Easy and fun.

[Timberridge]

Now if only my dog would start shitting in the native grass and not the lawn it would look even better. She's kind of a princess about it though.

Get yourself a good blower. My Redmax EBZ8500 will blow wet leaves and dogshit 25 ft.

[AdironRider]

Get yourself a good blower. My Redmax EBZ8500 will blow wet leaves and dogshit 25 ft.

I keep getting stern talkings to from the wife when she catches me looking them in Home Depot. My attempts at educating her have failed apparently.

[ColMan]

As many others have said - mulch with a mower and be done with it.

Some years you win and some you lose in regards to the wind direction. I won this year (so far). Left town late last week to a yard full of leaves. Big winds over the weekend were in my favor and they were all gone when I just rolled in.

[idahospud]

My neighbor just put up an acre's worth of fence around her yard so her ill behaved dogs can roam free and bark at stuff. I blow all my leaves onto her lawn and hit the dogs in the face with a 100mph blast of air and maple leaves. It's a good ol' time.

Joke's on you, those dogs are having the time of their lives imagining their idiot heads out the window at 100mph.

[SumJongGuy]

Before we took out two MASSIVE trees for a home addition the back yard would be around a foot deep in big elm and maple leaves by late November... actually too deep for our 5 horse mower to handle, wasn't even close to capable of mulching that mess. I would blow them all to the back fence and throw tarps over them to keep them from blowing back. Every yard waste week I'd fill the can with as many as I could pack in. Took til March to dispose of them all that way... would have been like 30-40 large leaf bags packed. Glad those days are over..

[Timberridge]

Joke's on you, those dogs are having the time of their lives imagining their idiot heads out the window at 100mph.

Covered in leaves and dogshit?

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

[Rideski]

I think the smaller new battery powered leaf blowers depend more on velocity than volume. So they have a higher pitched more shrill screaming sound. Plus with the fact it’s battery powered people try to turn it on and off to save battery. I’ve had a neighbor doing a shrill little blast for every single leaf in the yard starting late September


Wheeeee oooo wheeeeeee ooo whe o wheee Ooo wheeee Oooo wheeeee Ooo

[riser4]

As many others have said - mulch with a mower and be done with it.

Some years you win and some you lose in regards to the wind direction. I won this year (so far). Left town late last week to a yard full of leaves. Big winds over the weekend were in my favor and they were all gone when I just rolled in.

They'll be back.

[Supermoon]

We had a huge tree in our yard growing up that would dump all of its leaves into our neighbor’s yard, who happened to be the mayor. We started getting passive aggressive notes left on our door, then he turned the whole beurocracy of the city on us where they tried to say the roots of the tree were making the sidewalk non-ADA compliant. Fuckers.

[irul&ublo]

I ain't a greenthumb guy but my g.f. is...

Your g.f. Is a guy? NTTAWWT, but feel free to bypass the Ullr photo thread.

[brutah]

wait for all the leaves to fall.
cover with lighter fluid.
burn em all

[Timberridge]

wait for all the leaves to fall.
cover with lighter fluid.
burn em all

on a windy day

[gravitylover]

Back when I did leaf cleanup in my yard I would put the bag on the mower and suck/mulch them up that way once a week. Our yard looked perfect throughout the fall.

Then I realized what a stupid waste of time that was because all of my neighbor’s leaves would just blow into our yard. So the next year I thought I’d wait until all the leaves in the neighborhood fell then pick em up with the mower. Well then it decided to get cold and rain for a month after which I had no interest in picking up leaves. Fast forward to spring and the leaves that had sat in place all winter created a million dead spots in the lawn that weeds and other undesirables took advantage of in the following weeks. I spent the next few months wasting time and money fixing that damned lawn all because of the previous fall’s leaves.

That’s when I decided to hire Elver and his crew to just pick the f’ing leaves up when they come down. I’ve been much happier since.

TL;DR, hire Elver to pick up the leaves.

Were those weeds generally green? Did they look halfway decent from 50 feet at 25mph? They're fine, leave 'em alone and move on. Mow them occasionally and call it good.

Never rake, just wait till the leaves all fall then run over them with the lawn mower, leave the shredded leaves where they fall, the rain & snow will pound it into the lawn pretty quick

Its also time to thro some fuel conditioner in the Lawnmower & weed eater and make sure the snowblower starts

Yep. I make 2 passes on that last mow with the second being super short so whatever new stuff grows in the spring doesn't have to fight through so much thatch.

This year I let a bunch of stuff in the garden go to seed at the end so I'll spread those seeds when we inevitably get a late season inch or two of snow and hopefully end up with a yard full of food a few months later.

[gravitylover]

Oh and to the OP - On a fairly windy day go out and blow everything downwind. You'll be done in a few minutes and you'll never see those leaves again. Hopefully you don't end up with a new crop because it's windy.

[SumJongGuy]

5 plus years after removing two massive trees that were roughly 15 feet behind our house.. Yes, I miss the shade when working out back in the summer.. No, I don't miss the leaves... What I really don't miss is always wondering if one or both would come crashing through our roof during storms. We did have some pretty large limbs crash down on us during bad storms back when they were there. I'm not open another house with huge trees hovering over it.

[BmillsSkier]

Were those weeds generally green? Did they look halfway decent from 50 feet at 25mph? They're fine, leave 'em alone and move on. Mow them occasionally and call it good.
.

The year before, when I bagged the leaves regularly with the mower, people would slow down to a consistent 15mph to admire the lawn.

[k2skier112]

Then I realized what a stupid waste of time that was because all of my neighbor’s leaves would just blow into our yard.

Dude on one side of me rakes up leaves maybe 2 times a month, I swear his plan is to let them blow into my yard, and they're HIS fucking tree's!!

Neighbor on the other side, his only hobby is his yard, picks up leaves multiple times a week. Plus he picks up his trees leaves that fall in my driveway.

Polar opposites.

[exsparky]

I think the smaller new battery powered leaf blowers depend more on velocity than volume. So they have a higher pitched more shrill screaming sound. Plus with the fact it’s battery powered people try to turn it on and off to save battery. I’ve had a neighbor doing a shrill little blast for every single leaf in the yard starting late September


Wheeeee oooo wheeeeeee ooo whe o wheee Ooo wheeee Oooo wheeeee Ooo

Only the older ryobi's have a nice low tone. I two fist them like an old western gun fighter.


https://media.giphy.com/media/NzTodb4AF3lSw/giphy.gif

[riser4]

So my lot and the next lot are separated by a driveway and thin strip of trees that belong to the guy who lives behind me. His trees dump on both of us and he doesn't care. The on-street neighbor neighbor has a bunch of full time employees who deal with it on their side. I don't really care and maybe rake a bit or mow some, if I feel like it any given year. I wish the neighbor would cut the trees down so I can put solar on my roof, but he won't. And they shade my garden.

[BCMtnHound]

So my lot and the next lot are separated by a driveway and thin strip of trees that belong to the guy who lives behind me. His trees dump on both of us and he doesn't care. The on-street neighbor neighbor has a bunch of full time employees who deal with it on their side. I don't really care and maybe rake a bit or mow some, if I feel like it any given year. I wish the neighbor would cut the trees down so I can put solar on my roof, but he won't. And they shade my garden.

A couple jugs of white vinegar applied generously around the root collars of the offending trees during the growing season will solve that shade problem. At least that is what a friend told me...