Leaf cleanup is an important part of lawn care for a healthy green lawn! If you leave the fall leaves on the ground in your yard, you’ll stifle the growth of grass during any warmth Lynchburg will get during late fall and early spring. A leaf-free yard also helps improve the curb appeal for the landscape of your home.
Ways to Clean Up Leaves
Bagging System
Consider attaching a bagging system to your lawn mower for leaf removal. This simplifies the process since you can take care of the leaves while you cut the grass. However, consider the additional time it can take to continuously dump the bags. Leaves tend to clump and take more space in your bags than shredded grass will.
Best Way to Bag Leaves
Spending more money on larger systems allow you to suck up more debris between dumps, which can save a lot of time depending on the size of your lawn. However, the price for these systems gets higher, the larger you decide to go. Bagging systems can range from hundreds of dollars to thousands so make sure it’s within your budget.
Blowers
If you don’t want to worry about attaching a system to your mower, leaf blowers can offer a similar time reduction at a fraction of the cost. Just make sure to start your project after a few days of dry weather. Let the leaves get as dry as possible to allow the blower work at its fullest potential, saving you even more time. However, make sure you have somewhere to blow your leaves on your property.
Rakes
The least expensive method is simple raking. While it can be hard work physically, it’s not difficult. Simply rake the leaves into piles with a leaf rake and bag them up to take them away. If you have an extremely large yard, this is probably not the best way to take care of your leaves.
What to do with Fallen Leaves After You Collect Them
Once you have all the leaves dumped, blown or raked into piles, your job is not quite over. Reconsider leaving your piles by the road for trash pickup, there are just too many valuable nutrients in the leaves which can be used to add organic substance to your soil.
Mulching Leaves
Making mulch with your dead leaves is a great method of improving the quality of your lawn, and it can be done many ways.
Shredding your pile of leaves, sprinkling with a little water, and adding some carbon-based minerals such as grass and pine straw can turn your useless pile of dead leaves into a nitrogen enriched fertilizer, which will give your grass the color and body that it needs while not limiting its exposure to sunlight.
To get the most nutritional value out of these leaves, some will let their leaf piles sit for about a year to create a leaf mold on the bottom layer of the pile. This leaf mold is so concentrated in nutrients that many see the benefit of waiting a full year to make it. If you work on a
For those that don’t like to wait that long, speed up the process by keeping your pile damp and churning it as frequently as you can. This way, you can have this fertilizer gold before summer hits. Spray your pile with the hose every few days, as the leaf mold will form much quicker in a warm and moist environment, while letting the mold grow and expand faster as you alter where its concentrated.
Start a Compost Pile
Feel free to get creative though. Instead of using this high-quality mulch to improve the health of your lawn, consider using the leaf mold as a compost and start a garden. Eating freshly grown, not to mention organic, food grown from your own property can be not only a healthy lifestyle, but an entertaining conversation piece at your next dinner party. You can’t buy that kind of fresh ingredients, so why not share with your friends and family?
What Not To Do With Your Leaves
Whatever your preferences, refrain from burning your leaves. Not only to avoid seeing vital nutrients going up in smoke, but for safety reasons. When leaves burn they can release Hydrocarbons or Carbon Monoxide into the air, or can easily spread, starting a brush or forest fire.
During late fall when all of the gorgeous red, orange, and yellow autumn leaves fall from the trees, it’s best to keep your lawn as clear as possible to keep it healthy! So if you don’t have time to do leaf cleanup yourself, give us a call, we offer leaf cleanup for your yard!