Trees aren't even half done and some trees are still green! My first year owning a home I tried mulching and was left with inches deep leaf mulch that smothered the lawn in spring and left me with mud. Now I clean up most of the leaves and mulch what's left so it doesn't kill the lawn.
by Kandals
32 Comments
Need more lawn, demo house. Build tree house. Bam, problem solved.
You have to continuously mow them. Dont wait until they’ve all fallen.
Leaves of Red oak species in particular do not break down very fast due to the high tannin content. It wouldn’t be as much of an issue for other species so YMMV depending on what tree you have.
I’m convinced nobody in the “mulch them” crowd has a yard like that. Mine is the same way. I have multiple huge oak trees that I genuinely love having in the yard.
But it means there’s no way I’m mulching anything. I do a couple of hours of cleanup every weekend from now until mid December in order to keep up with them.
Oak leaves are built different. They just don’t break down.
Good call not mulching this many. As someone else said if you wanted to go the mulch route you’d want to be doing so every few days vs once they have all piled up. With established oaks in a small area like this there is just not a ton of options other than collecting them.
I would mow then leaf blow. My yard had a solid layer and that seemed to move better than the whole leaves. Plus a little mulching got left behind, but I would highly recommend wearing a mask if you go that route. May try a smaller area first to see how it does with your leaves
This is the way to do it. You can always mulch every leaf that falls. Maybe some people can, but it just doesn’t work for everyone.
I use my blower and lawn sweeper for the big clean-ups, usually twice…then I just mulch whatever else in.
My lawn is very similar. So many trees, I can mulch 3 or 4 times, but then it becomes very apparent I’m mulching. I’ll essentially just have a layer of chipped leaves. Then I have to bag. And usually that’s 2-3 rounds of bagging.
The idea is the mulch them before it gets this covered and mulch it regularly , but I agree that’s too much tree for that size of yard.
I have about 9 large oaks on 1/2 acre and if I can mow every few days I can keep up with mowing with the bag and mowing without but there comes a point where the garden gets full, the lawn can’t take anymore and the large leaf bags have to come out. I hate it.
I find mowing over the leaves doesn’t do enough. I blow them into a pile then do a pass or two over them with the mower in mulching mode. It ends up being much finer. I can then bag some and blow the rest back onto the grass.
ABB – always be baggin!
Never put your tape measure in the dryer.
OP I have nearly the same issue… but with more yard and the same amount of leaves. I blow them all towards one side of the yard and then go back and forth until they’re somewhat broken down. Then bag them to not take up nearly as many bags
“Mulch ’em, just might just have to go over them 100 times”
Let’s not turn this into a leaf measuring contest
I had three giant mulberry trees with larger leaves and always mulched them
That doesn’t just happen overnight though.
Owner of several large oaks on my property. It’s a biweekly or minimum weekly responsibility from October 10 – Christmas.
I own a 36 inch walk behind with a mulch kit and blades.
My ego would never get through those leaves. My walk behind turns them into dust.
People who say to just mulch them have never dealt with leaves
Your thinking about this all wrong; https://lgmsoil.com/organic-oak-leaf-mold/
Still say to mow and bag. Or a leaf vacuum/ shredder.
100%. I watched my neighbor mow over this the other day – with a push mower – probably about 10 times in the same spot and all it left was a mess and a ton of chopped up leaves. Meanwhile, my backpack blower had all the leaves in a pile and bagged within an hour or so.
My yard is similar, I generally try to mulch before they all fall, if the weather lets me get to them early enough I can mulch them down once or twice before they all really fall and then it’s me mulching and picking up. I run mower over them with chute on, then get them in a group and mulch with no chute, then go over again with bagger on. I can usually turn about 10-15 bags into 2 which is nice for cleanup
what’s the problem
have you tried mulching them?
/s
I’m in the same boat as you. I have multiple hundred year old trees on my lot. Catalpa, American Elm, Norway Maple. There is no way to mulch all the leaves
Mulch then bagger, into a compost pile and some for the garden. No one with any real number of mature trees on property only “just” mows them and still has grass.
I mow weekly in the fall. I have a huge maple in my backyard and my lawn would look similar if I didn’t mow often.
If it’s really bad, I will mow and then blow the remnant to the street
Looks like you’re growing grass in an area that would struggle to grow grass naturally anyway. Likely a dry shade environment along with the leaf litter.
My yard is like that. I mulch everything, then do 1 pass where I bag before snow or spring if I can’t get to it.
When I had to face a lawn like this for one fall I found the best option for me was frequent mulching mows with a bag attached. Just made it easier to bag so I could fit a bit more each round.
No easy solutions though. Any way you slice it this is a hell of a lot of work until the trees finally relent.
I’m surrounded by trees and mow/bag the leaves on the lawn and leave the leaves in the beds until spring. The mowed leaves and grass make nice compost and the leaves collected in the spring help make good compost the rest of the year.