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.... But I can't afford to lose property value by destroying the lawn...
Read the reffences sited above...You won't be destroying the lawn... That's a myth... Your lawn will do better with a lower requirement for additional fertilizer.
It's always a good idea to use a mulching blade on a mower-- not for the tree leaves (they break down quickly without help) but for the grass blades, which tend to mat & form thatch which keeps air & moisture out of the soil and prevents new grass shoots from coming up.
Electric mowers are a good idea-- almost no noise pollution amd obviously less (ie- no) fuel usage on site. While I don't like the capital expense & planned obsolence of battery powered units, at least they're easy to re-charge, given that you probably only use the thing once a week or so.
I honestly believe people who come up with ideas like this live in apartment buildings in the inner city and have zero comprehension of what would happen if you left leaves all over your lawn and didn't ever rake them up.
My neighbor has a gigantic maple that drops its leaves around the first week in November each year. The only possible reason I could see why someone would not rake up the leaves is if they wanted a muddy, unusable backyard devoid of any grass come spring. Grass requires sunlight to grow. If you leave piles of leaves all over the grass, it does not get proper sunlight and will die in rather short order.
No thanks.
FWIW, my house was built in 1959, has always had a grass yard, always had the leaves raked up, and there is absolutely no shortage of insects, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, possums, bats, birds, raccoons, coyotes or any other critter you would expect to see in a healthy ecosystem in this neighborhood.
I let the wind take care of my leaves. Most of them are blown across the street into wooded lots. What doesn't get blown across the street I blow onto my partially wooded spare lot to let them dissolve naturally. Any leftovers are mulched into my lawn when I mow the last time.
The wind always blows towards my house. I get all the leaves from the guy across the street, until he gets his picked up. I mulch them into the grass with the mower now and then. My husband and I used to blow them into the wooded lot next to us but no more. Just the mower from now on.
The wind always blows towards my house. I get all the leaves from the guy across the street, until he gets his picked up. I mulch them into the grass with the mower now and then. My husband and I used to blow them into the wooded lot next to us but no more. Just the mower from now on.
We have a ton of leaves from Maples (my fav) and other weird little trees with waxy oval leaves in our backyard.
We have a vegetable garden back there and I swept all the leaves from the decks into the garden. I use to bag em and let the city take em away, but because of this post will try to use it to enrich the soil.
Someone stated that no matter how many leaves fall, by the time Spring comes around and the snow all melts, most of the leaves will simply decompose into soil?
Well there is a huge layer of leaves back there now... one is covering our chives bed. Hope it doesn't suffocate it? Or will it protect the chives from freezing?
Anyhoo will wait for Spring and will post back here to state how much leaves are remaining and if it seems to add to the fertility of the soil.
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