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our yard has many trees, mostly tall oaks which shed all their leaves only now, around thanksgiving. after years of doing it ourselves, mainly me, we now hire help. the man comes twice late in the fall. blows all the leaves into the beds and the woods in the back the first round, and then repeats but this time he gets all the leaves into the woods. he also cleans out the gutters.
i know many of my neighbors who have their own riding mowers bag them and the town comes to collect once a week. it is too much for me and my husband hates to spend any time in the yard. some people have lawn cutting service and i think they take the leaves away for extra fee.
the woods in the back look terrible now with all these leaves piled. eventually they would flatten out but i am wondering if i should have our yard man bag them next year. i don't know how much more he would charge and i am afraid to ask.
I used to have that problem Mulch some by type and others I bagged and city picked up. Some leaves take years to really mulch so I did it by type and they luckily loss leaves at different time.
I use some for mulch and the others I just keep running the lawn mower over and over and they get chopped up into small pieces and by Spring they're rotted into the soil, great natural fertilizer.
our yard has many trees, mostly tall oaks which shed all their leaves only now, around thanksgiving. after years of doing it ourselves, mainly me, we now hire help. the man comes twice late in the fall. blows all the leaves into the beds and the woods in the back the first round, and then repeats but this time he gets all the leaves into the woods. he also cleans out the gutters.
i know many of my neighbors who have their own riding mowers bag them and the town comes to collect once a week. it is too much for me and my husband hates to spend any time in the yard. some people have lawn cutting service and i think they take the leaves away for extra fee.
the woods in the back look terrible now with all these leaves piled. eventually they would flatten out but i am wondering if i should have our yard man bag them next year. i don't know how much more he would charge and i am afraid to ask.
What do all of you do?
Having him bag them is very labor intensive and time consuming for one guy - you'd probably wind up paying him more than just hiring a landscaper for a one time clean up.
Don't know what your area is like or how big a yard you have, but hiring a landscaper to come one time when leaves are almost all down is the most cost effective for me ...aside from doing it myself - I'd have to do it once or twice a week for 2 months to stay on top of it and try to squash everything into those paper bags and haul to curb (I have nowhere to dump them or blow them to as I have neighbors all around me and no woods)...no thanks! The landscaper comes with a team of 6 - 8 guys and they have my whole yard (1 acre) done in 60 -90 mins. and it is nearly spotless. They blow everything towards their big main vacuum truck which vacuums/chops/reduces the leaves and branches and then they cart everything away. Costs me $350 cash (not just leaves but any branches that have fallen and/or are stockpiled and some minor trimming of bushes/plantings).
Obviously cost will vary by area but to me it is worth every penny when my time/labor/back pain is weighed against the one time charge I incur while sitting back with my feet up enjoying a beverage while watching them strip my yard clean.
Maintenance removes my leaves from my yard, driveway, gutters and deck just in time before they need to plow my driveway and shovel my walkway and steps. HOA fees at work.
I sack them up myself. I use a leaf blower, make a pile, sack 5 bags, quit for the day. Takes about an hour. Then do the same the next day, and the next, etc until the job is finished. If it rains I wait a couple of days, start again.
Easy work, good exercise. No problem. Over a week you can sack up a LOT of leaves,
Weird that no one has mentioned chopping them. We use the riding mower and chop them up...I do it a couple of times a week for a good while. The leaves break down and afix nitrogen into the soil.
We have oaks in the backyard, which is approx. 15K sq ft, a woods behind us and oaks and tulip poplars in the front yard, wihich is approx. 20K sq ft.
A good mulching push mower and our riding mulcher does it all.
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