On Wed, 05 Sep 2012 19:07:02 -0400, Leaf Erickson
wrote:

Doug used improper AND LAZY usenet message composition style by
unnecessarily full-quoting:

Of course you could rake thru out the fall and winter (if no snow)
but depending on how large an area, it might be futile unless you
just love to rake. People there didn't rake till Spring. He's got
a point about gloves but I was young then so I wasn't too worried
about my hands.

I use my lawn mower to mulch and bag the leaves, and dump them into
several large garbage cans (compacted by stomping on them) which are
then loaded into my pickup truck for transport to the local municipal
yard-waste drop-off center.

There are many leaf-borne tree diseases that are spread and amplify
through leaf litter that remains over the winter under vulnerable
trees. Leaf removal is therefore a desirable if not necessary thing to
do to promote tree health.

Leaf cover over turf grass can promote fungus and various turf diseases
and therefore should be removed for that reason as well. Naturally this
deleterious effect on grass is proportional to the size of the tree
(larger tree = more leaves) as well as tree density, confined or open
yard configuration, etc.


What you say seems to make sense but honestly, we never had any fungi
on the lawn after raking up leaves in Spring. In fact, I don't recall
ever seeing fungus on that lawn. I can't say the same for my current
lawn which does seem to have a fungus problem every August. That
said, the 2 lawns are about 2500 miles apart, different types of grass
and weather.