leaves | pad patter 11.12.19

Discussion in 'Chatty Pad' started by keepscrappin, Nov 12, 2019.

  1. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    I love how beautiful the leaves look in the Fall, but they sure do make a mess of the yard.
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    Last week I spent 4.5 hours out in the yard raking leaves out of our flower beds. I used the rake, leaf blower and snow shovel! Yes, I said snow shovel! Once I had the leaves out of the flower beds and in a pile on the grass, I used the shovel to scoop the leaves into bags. I would scoop some leaves and then kneel on the bag to smash them down. Scoop some more and smash. I ended up filling 5 BIG bags full of leaves.

    I was exhausted and sore for a couple of days but was happy with how great the flower beds looked. But an hour later when hubby got home, the winds had picked up and more leaves had fallen so you couldn't even tell I had done all that work... ugh! My only saving grace was the 5 bags of leaves piled up by the fence as proof of my hard work.

    I should have taken a photo because I won't be raking leaves again any time soon. Bob Vila said I didn't have too, so I'll just have my hubby mulch them into the grass with the mower. Turns out that the leaves are actually good to fertilize your lawn. Who knew? https://www.bobvila.com/articles/mulching-leaves/

    So my question is, do you rake the leaves at your house or leave them to fertilize the lawn?
     
  2. Angela Toucan

    Angela Toucan I keep looking for THAT wardrobe

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    we leave them on the lawn
     
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  3. gonewiththewind

    gonewiththewind I choose joy.

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    Well, first off, **I** don't rake or mulch. Hubby does all of the lawn and gardening, for which I am very grateful. If the leaves are very thick, he will rake. If they are scattered and light, he will mulch them with the mower. He adds most of the leaves into our flower beds and they act as fertilizer there.

    If you have loads of leaves, I have a tip for you from my youth, when raking was part of my chores. Get an old sheet and spread it on the ground. Rake the leaves onto it and then you can drag them to your pile and/or bag.
     
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  4. djp332

    djp332 She sells seashells down by the seashore

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    The advantage of moving to Florida and paying HOA fees. We don’t have to do the yard work anymore. And the leaves don’t fall much here, although I did see a palm frond on my driveway yesterday. It’s gone today.
     
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  5. IntenseMagic

    IntenseMagic Some grannies cuss a lot. I'm some grannies.

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    I hate raking leaves more than any other chore ever! We don't have as many now that we've had some trees cut, but it used to be at least ankle high on our whole half acre, and in some spots way deeper. I used to spread out a big tarp in the yard and rake them on there and drag them to the woods behind the house, now for the most part I mulch them with the lawn mower. I would rather push the mower over them 80 times than to rake them. The back yard is still pretty bad, so I usually wait to see what the wind bows away and then deal with what's left in the spring. It typically involves hours of using the blower. Thank heavens for teenagers :giggle.
     
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  6. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    I only have 1 large tree and a small one in my yard. However, I get leaves from the neighbor's trees. The house to my west faces a street that has a lot of trees. That area of the sub-division is called "the woods" for a reason. I haven't raked leaves for many years. I don't do the yard work (bad back and allergies), I pay my neighbor to mow the grass and a landscaping company to do the weeding and flower bed maintenance.

    However, I have an issue with leaves collecting on the north side of my house. Used to be so bad, it killed grass since I just let them collect. Then I put in my new patio with fencing and hoped that would help keep them away from the house. Nope. Now they collect on the patio and in the fencing and flower beds along the fencing. I spent last Monday getting those leaves on the patio into the yard. Took me a couple of hours (with multiple rest periods) using a rake and a broom. I didn't even work on the leaves on the other side of the fence.

    My neighborhood (the woods) has a group that will collect the leaves and dispose of them as long as you get them to the edge of your property. Dad asked to join this group when they built the house but they refused us because we weren't "in the woods". They have had to expand the group because the workers are getting older and they need new blood. So my neighbor to my east and the guy that mows my yard (across the street) are now workers for them. So last year Chris had a bagger and collected my leaves then dumped them in his yard for pick up. This year he is trying a sweeper and doing the same thing. Ironically, I got the notice in my mailbox to join the association this year. When I talked to Chris about it, he said for me not to join, he would do the leaves like he did last year. I told him I would pay his discounted fee to belong to the association since he is a worker and he agreed to that. Prior to last year, Chris would mulch them. He had to do it quite often though which is why he tried the bagger last year. He just no longer had the time to do that for both his yard, my yard and my cousin's yard (he does her yard work as well). Dad had a mulching mower as well when he died it 20 years ago.

    I am planning on getting a leaf blower that will maybe help me keep the leaves off the patio next year. I have never had one and I can see a use for it. It will have to be small and lightweight though!
     
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  7. cookingmylife

    cookingmylife Pizza would be my last meal, except ...

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    We leave them as himself just doesn't want to lawn mower chop them up anymore and I don't want to pay to have it done. Here I'm only talking about our 18x60 ft back yard.

    Out front is the nuisance. Across the street is a beautiful OLD Pin Oak with leaves about the size of my ring finger. They mat very quickly and my Cypriot neighbor still, after 30 years, rakes the leaves from the part of the street in front of her house to right at the property line in front of mine. And as sure as she does, it tends to rain or drizzle.

    Fortunately she's getting pretty slow these days & sadly she's only two days younger than I am!! She no longer rakes twice a day.
     
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  8. jenn mccabe

    jenn mccabe She's OUR sunshine!

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    We live up on a huge hill and the wind can be crazy at times. The wind blows most of them away - hubby will sometimes mulch them with the mower, but the planting beds/landscaping areas need to be raked out.
     
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  9. Karen

    Karen Wiggle it, just a little bit!

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    My hubby refuses to leave any leaves on our yard, so he's out there raking them into the street (thankfully we don't have to bag) and then he mows to pick up the rest of the leaves that the rake didn't get. I grew up with a country lawn, so we never raked our leaves so that they could become fertilizer for the lawn, but that doesn't computer for my hubby. He rakes them all up and then pay for bags of fertilizer. :giggle I really believe he enjoys doing it and needs it to keep himself busy. He can't stand sitting around unless there's a good game on TV.

    The boys and I help him rake about half the time, but I hate that when we are done, more leaves fall or more blow in from the neighbors, so it seems like a futile exercise to me!
     
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  10. AJK

    AJK I plead the 5th ...

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    Who knew - about Bob Villa?!! Good news. Here though we have mostly pine trees in our yard- so sadly not much Fall color. NOT gonna rake the pine needles, HA! Deciduous trees are in the back yard forest. No raking there either. But hope that when we buy our house first of next year we DO have trees with falling leaves. :D Did you know that stacks of pine needles are Palmetto bugs' ( huge roachies) favorite nesting places?!!!:td YUCK. We stopped using them around shrubs after we learned that!:faint2
     
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  11. LeeAndra

    LeeAndra A total Betty.

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    The county leaf program is supposed to start its second (and final) pass this week... but we got 6 inches of snow yesterday so who knows when we'll get around to raking and they'll get around to sucking them up?!
     
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  12. Cherylndesigns

    Cherylndesigns All glasses should be bigger than 1.5 oz

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    Well, you'd think that living in Florida, we wouldn't have leaves. We also have an HOA, but we also have one of those pesky trees that drops leaves all the time, right beside our garage door. Go figure. The maintenance guys keep the driveways blown off (on their yardwork days) but those darned leaves just won't wait a week to fall again. They also blow into our garage if we leave the door up for any length of time. We had the door open all the time the kids trick or treated because we sat outside at the end of the driveway. Our garage was full of leaves. I'm going to get me a leaf blower because I'm tired of sweeping all the time.
     
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  13. michele hillam

    michele hillam Loading up the bookmobile

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    LOL, this works for a bunch of legos too!
     
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  14. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    Yes lightweight is a must! Also make sure it's cordless. Ours is corded and heavy and it was a bugger to work with. I told my hubby that I was gonna go buy a cordless one to blow the leaves out of the flower beds and then he could mulch them into the grass with the lawn mower.
     
  15. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    Your hubby is welcome to our leaves anytime he needs something to do. :giggle
     
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  16. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    BIG NOPE to roaches... yikes!
     
  17. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    The snow does make a mess of them, that's why I was trying to get them bagged or mulched. Thank goodness we don't have any snow right now but it's going to be bad weather this weekend so I hope hubby can mulch with the mower again before it snows and the leaves get all matted up and moldy in the grass.
     
  18. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    Leaves getting the garage is a pet peeve of hubby's. He gets upset when someone leaves the garage open and all the leaves come in. :rollingpin
     
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  19. keepscrappin

    keepscrappin ScrapWithTheWind

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    Wish I would have thought of this when my son was little. I'll have to remember for when we get grandkids.
     
  20. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    I actually have an electric outlet outside in my patio area so I'm getting one with a cord. I also want to use it to blow dust/leaves out of the garage and there are outlets in there as well. My neighbor agrees that would work great for what I need since it isn't a large area. He hates his cordless one but realizes that is what he has to have since he takes it all over the neighborhood! Lowe's has one that is lightweight and needs a cord. I'm leaning towards getting it although it won't do me any good right now with snow on the ground!
     

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