We are fortunate to live in a mature neighborhood with lots of big trees. We have a huge maple in our front yard as well as one on the boulevard. Once, after a hard week at the studio and with the help of a Leine’s Honey Weiss, I starting counting leaves – lost track at just over 4,000,321. I wonder if anyone really knows – other than you know who. Guess I’ll have to ask him someday; “how many leaves are on a maple tree and what were you thinking with the willow tree!?!?!?”
Enough philosophy;-) I have a little trick I’ve done for the last several years with my leaves I thought you might find useful. Kate and I came home last night – and since it wasn’t raining like every other day for the last month – figured we better rake leaves. One hour flat was all it took to rid the front yard of a virtual (actually actual not virtual) carpet of soggy brown maple leaves.
We rake and use the leaf blower (my old “hair blower” from the studio) to move all of the leaves onto the driveway. Then I fire up the Honda in mulching mode and grind all the leaves to dust. This is much easier and faster than bagging them as the bag always fills up in about two and half seconds and this way the leaves are much finer. (kind of like the freshest fish at Finney’s diner – if you read Dr. Suess)
After that we shovel them into the wheelbarrow and take them around back to mulch the garden. You don’t want to mulch with whole leaves because they trap water and can cause nasty mold junk in your garden.
My lawn care tip for the day! And you thought I was just a photographer.
