"David Combs" wrote

Subject: (in North-East USA): Must *every* leaf be blown from lawn?

A couple of people (have nice lawns, gardins, and so on --
and tell me that I *must" get rid of *all* thse leaves.
Question: is this really necessary?
And if so, why?

I'll post a little disclaimer. If you dont, then they blow into others
yards and then they have to cleanup what they consider a mess. Neighbors
must be upset at having to clean up after your trees?

Also, dunno where you are but it's cold enough you lose leaves in winter
evidently. If any of your neighbors have a fireplace, they'd be using it
about now. Firehazard.
I have the same thing here, with a fireplace and too many dry leaves can
lead to potential hazards if the wind kicks up and they pile against my
chimney.

My right side neighbor (same side as my fireplace) have what we think of as
a communal tree. Huge lovely old oak. Technically it's about 2 feet into
his property line but so close to my driveway, it's got cracks from roots
(his driveway is well away and fine). We dont mind the cracks (like the
tree too much to worry about little things like that) but come winter, we
have to clear the leaves quite a bit or they can pile up as much as 3ft deep
along the side of the fireplace. (I kid you not, that can be the depth of
leaves due to wind effects etc).

We don't worry between us about the leaves. See, Joe is 78 and his wife is
72. We have lived here for 10+ years and regard the tree as communal
property, so when the time comes, we just pick out all the sticks (great
kindling there!) then run the lawnmower over the whole area (both yards) to
turn it into a sort of mulch. We then turn over as many bags as they want
to their compost heap. We get along just fine.

Joe and I have no concern about 'looks' of the leaves, but are safety
concious about the fireplace. 2 days ago I didnt feel like raking leaves
other than back from the fireplace directly against the brick (a good 1.5
feet deep) so wetted them down with a hose after moving the bit against the
chimney back some 15ft. First though Charlotte (daugher, 15) and I
scavanged out a 30 gallon trashbag worth of little to middle sized sticks to
use as kindling.

The communal Oak will stop being a problem within the next week, which is
just when our flowering pear will take off it's skivvies and go naked for
the rest of the year. It's not as big as the oak, but it's still a mighty
big tree!