Our yard is treed and at the end of fall has an over whelming amount of leaves. We paid some kids 300.00 a couple of years ago which inclusive of the two flower beds we have.

They did it in a way that made total sense too and we had never thought of. They laid huge tarps on the ground and piled the leaves on top of them, dragged the tarps to the truck, rolled them up and loaded the them in the bed. They said they were going to dump the leaves in an wooded lot their parents owned. Now that's what we do, only we empty the tarps in a wooded area on the side of our lot. It's so much easier and quicker too!

We no longer bag our leaves so you might be able to do what we do instead. We have a mulching mower. DH and I move the leaves to a flat area in the yard and he runs over them a couple times with the mower/bag off. It grinds them beautifully and they are WAY less volume. I then rake them over where I want them or leave them in the area that we ground them up to make paths.

Your boy could do this for you and that way you save on the labor of the bagging which is a PIA ..we did it for YEARS...and you save on the plastic bags too and your garden gets all that great mulch. Also you could just get a leaf grinder/mulching machine and it does the same thing only really fast and you have the stuff for him to spread.

Hope this helps...it will pay for itself in no time at all. c

Here is a link that might be useful: leaf grinder..great reviews

I also vote for the lawn mower. You will have great mulch once you run over the leaves a couple of times. Also agree that extra can be raked to beds after mowing.

If you like to garden, another vote for the mower. I use the chopped up leaves on the flower and shrub beds after dh mows and what's left ends up in the compost bins.

Oh Gosh! Between say April, and the end of November, I rake leaves at least three times a week. I usually spend about an hour to & hour & a half in the front, & then the same amount of time in the back, at least a few days a week during those months. Then there's the sides of the house, the driveway, the walkways, & yes...the beds! I spend at least another couple hours a week on those areas.

During the month of November, I easily have 10-12 very full bags for pick up parked at the curb weekly.

Though we're well into December, I did just pick up four bags of debris the Friday before Xmas Eve & could still stand to pick up several bags more. Doesn't look TOO terrible, but there's still some stuff out there.

I have lots of leaves (obviously!) & tons of pine needles & cones. It's a lot of work to keep the lawn & beds neat.

It's truly NOT the raking that is the hard part...it is the bagging! I am constantly squatting & standing, squatting & standing, rinse & repeat, hundreds of times over! The pine needles can get very heavy.

Hiring someone to do it once a year sounds smart. I'd come over & round em up for ya, AJ. ( As you can see, I do have some experience!) Just give me a cup of tea & let me sit in that cute cozy chair in your living room for a while after I'm done!

Maybe you could cut down on the cost if you raked the leaves into piles and had someone bag them for you. As far as pricing, I'd pay a teenager $2.50 a bag if they weren't very particular. If someone works like I do...using gloved hands to pick of debris under shrubs,along the curbs, driveway, etc., I'd pay $5-6.00 a bag!

Stinky, what kind of trees do you have that drop leaves practically year round? I would kill for your pine needles. At one time we had 9 pines, but I still had to supplement with purchased bales. That's my favorite mulch!

Thanks for the ideas! I don't even know if our current mower is a mulcher or not, but if so, we could always hire someone to mulch the leaves and then do something with the mulch, I suppose. This has been DH's chore, but his allergies have grown worse and spending a day out amongst the leaves causes respiratory issues that will linger for days after, so we'd just like to hire someone to take care of it at this point. He'd been going out and raking/bagging on a weekly basis when the leaves first began to fall, but it seems like no sooner would he get them picked up than the lawn would be covered again - within just a few short hours! I adore the big old trees, but there is a price to pay for having them.

I was actually thinking of offering $2-$3 a bag (we have to use paper bags in our jurisdiction, and they won't hold as much as the large Hefty plastic bags), but DH thinks it might be better to have someone quote us on a "per job" basis instead of per bag.

I've placed an ad on my company's electronic bulletin board to see if anyone knows of a student that might be willing to take on this job. I guess at this point I'll wait a few days to see if I get a response, and ask anyone who does respond to give us a quote.

The lawn service that works for my elderly MIL charged $675 to pick up her leaves. I almost choked when I heard it.

Natal, it's those darn Sycamores that belong to the city. I posted about them on the hurricane Irene thread. They are injured due to the city re-building the sidewalk every few years. What a mess they generate; big, brown, crunchy leaves, not pretty orange & red ones like some people are scooping up in the Fall!

Also, between front & back we have seven pines. Then there's the flower petals that drop from the Camellias, & the pod things that fall from the Crepe Myrtles, & the bark that sheds from those lovely Sycamores...on & on!

As AJ said so well, there IS a price to pay for being surrounded by trees... plant life in general, really! But I know in spite of all the intensive labor, none of us here at GW would have it any other way!

Actually, if I ever move again, my ideal property would have many of the same specimens I currently have (minus Sycamores) but with NO lawn (or a very small one!) Lawns are crazy, & I have a fairly sizable one. That's another thread though.

AJ, I SO relate to:
" He'd been going out and raking/bagging on a weekly basis when the leaves first began to fall, but it seems like no sooner would he get them picked up than the lawn would be covered again - within just a few short hours!"

I could kiss you for saying that! Someone who understands! Yes! I can no longer sing, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." LOL!

I know sycamores. The neighbor behind us had one, but back then our pines presented a line of defense from a lot of the leaves. Now they're gone and so is the sycamore. My nemesis is the house on our left with its ever-so-messy pecan trees. And I hear you on lawns ... we've naturalized 2/3 of the front yard and I've turned more than half of the back into beds and a veggie garden.

Just be careful about what kind of leaves you mulch. We've been told repeatedly by the local garden folks that the trees we have (Oak or maple maybe) don't make for a good mulch and will suffocate the lawn. :c(

Oak leaves make great mulch for any acid loving plants like azaleas, rhododendrons, etc. Once they are chopped up, they are fine and great for beds. I use them every year! My former MIL had the most wonderful gardens and that is what she did also. I can't imagine that any leaves would be bad as long as you don't leave the leaves lying whole so they end up forming a mat. That is the only way they could hurt a lawn. Lots of cities, mine included, collect and mulch the leaves, then sell them back to residents the next year.

We have a live oak that provides plenty of leaves for mulch. I use those on all the azaleas and some of the deeper beds.

We've got a large cart provided by our garbage service for compostable materials and we fill it weekly all year long. In the fall/winter, we have to pile up the leaves and wait from week to week for the pick up. Right now we have a 12' long, 4' wide and 3' tall pile in the back yard that was the result of DH leaf blowing the deck & patio and the walkway to the shed. That hasn't touched the rest of our back yard.

We've got a red maple and a sweet gum in the front yard, so between the helicopters from the maple, and the prickly balls from the sweet gum, our bin is filled every week from those alone. And now the rain has started, so the leaves get soggy.

They usually have a 'free' leaf haul, where you can dump off your leaves & lawn debris in December, but you have to load them up yourself (no bags). We could fill both trucks several times with the leaves we have.

My hubby mowed and mulched leaves today. Just did the front (we have a little over an acre), so once he gets to the back - hopefully that is it for this year.

Lukki - we don't mulch our lawn at all, but we do sometimes use the ground leaves in beds. Depends on how the pinestraw looks at the time.

Aunt Jen - your poor hubby - I have a terrible mold allergy and cannot help with the leaves at all (actually that's not a bad thing LOL).

Stinky - you should let someone come pick up your pine needles and use for mulch - it would benefit both parties! We have a friend who drives a UPS truck. He has a customer who saves their pine needles for him! Much softer than the pinestraw bales.

tina

How is pine straw in a bag different than in a bale? They're both soft. One's just compressed.

Maybe we have maple then, I really don't know because they were here when we moved in and I'm not a gardener at all. I didn't even know all the pine needles we have are a good thing.

Our riding mower mulches beautifully. We have a big lot so if we hadn't been told that mulching them would ruin the grass, we'd be all over it. In the fall, everyone spends countless weekends bagging them here. :c(

I see, you guys are talking about flower beds and I'm talking about the lawn (because we have wooded areas but few real beds to speak of) Still everyone here lifts the leaves. There's got to be a reason so many people do it.

What about those lawn services that vacuum up leaves? I have always wondered how much they were. We don't have much of a leaf problem; I use the leaf blower and blow everything into the woods that edge the property. It's ironic, we have a nice pine grove, maybe half an acre size, all pines in rows, yet I much prefer hardwood mulch!

People do it because they all want those perfectly manicured lawns on which they then have to use all sorts of fertilizers, weed killers, etc. to maintain. Finely chopped leaves won't hurt the lawn at all. They even provide nutrients. Our grass looks just fine. I have no grass left in the back yard at this point. It is a natural woodland garden. There is some moss which I love and I hope it will spread. Leaves can stay on the ground in wooded areas. That is what happens naturally in wild areas and nothing bad happens. In fact, the leaves provide hiding places for beneficial insects-ever wonder why so many places don't have the number of lightning bugs we used to have in the 1950s? I've been gardening for more than 50 years (started as a child-ha) and have come to the conclusion that I can have a wonderful yard and garden using my own leaves as mulch. There really isn't any good reason for people to bag all their leaves, lukki.

BB, I have a lawn service! They blow the leaves the one day a week they come out, but what they do doesn't come close to attending to the leaves and debris. The crew would have to move into my house, LOL, in order to do that! I mean, once a week leaf blowing is not ever going to be sufficient. Plus, these guys won't get into pulling the leaves, pine needles, and cones out of the shrubs and roses and pansies & so forth the way I do.

My next door neighbor vacuums her lawn 1-3 times a day, every month of the year. I hate the noise! It's crazy. She has no trees either, but I realize she gets stuff from my property. She has ZERO tolerance for leaves! She pays top dollar for a more high-end lawn service than I have. My service comes out 7 months a year, while hers comes out weekly all 12 months. They have ruined so many of her nice flowering shrubs because they over-clip like mad in order to meet her need for everything to be manicured, tidy, neat.

She thinks I live in a pig pen, I promise you. But... daily, especially multiple, daily, outdoor vacuumings, will never be for me!

Stinky, I have thought about getting an attachment for the leaf blower to vacuum up the stuff in beds but I think the noise would be so irritating!
There's something peaceful about cleaning out a flower bed and hearing the birds sing.

I hate leaf blowers with a passion. Dh finally bought a battery-operated one and it's a little less irritating. Give me a rake or a broom any day.

That's interesting Cyn. Thanks for explaining. Personally, I do not care for a perfectly manicured lawn. We don't have as much wooded area as I wish (building our house did that!), but still plenty of trees. Beds/landscaping only up around the house, the rest is more natural.

I love pine straw for mulching. I love how it looks and it's so good for the acid loving plants. Being in the south, we have plenty of those!

I don't think a vacuum is any louder/more irritating than a blower.

tina

Thanks, Tina. It is my viewpoint and info I have gleaned from lots of reading, classes, and experience. I am sure there are many who take a completely opposite view---some of my neighbors for instance. ;)

I also hate the sound of leaf blowers and electric string trimmers. Much nicer gardening in my yard when all I hear are birds.

Also love pine straw for mulch, but have no pines at this point, alas.

Sorry to hijack, Jen!

This thread reminds me of a funny story. We are lucky enough to live in an older area with lovely huge elm trees lining all the streets. Unfortunately, Dutch Elm Disease is threatening our elm population. Every fall we take up a collection on our block and a group of volunteers bands the trees. Labour intensive, but we will do just about anything to save our trees. One year an elderly neighbour came out and started arguing with us about what we were doing. She wanted us to stop saving the trees because she hated raking the leaves in the fall.

Yes, AJ, sorry for the hijack!

So...many of you share my disdain for the menacing sound of a leaf blower! It's almost cliche, talking about birdsongs, but the sound of birds really IS so soothing & interesting to listen to while working! No sound at all but the swooshing of the rake & broom is nice too. Indeed, the old-fashioned tools do a great job & don't pollute the environment with aggressive, boisterous noise.

If my neighbor just came out & did a 10 minute cursory scan with the blower it would be one thing, but she can be out there for one or two hours at a time then come back out for another hour or two, then again for 15 minutes. This is daily.

I joked on the pajama thread about being prepared for "midnight leaf blowing," but the lady next door actually has gone out after dark to use the blower (not at midnight, but late!) & AFTER a day where she'd already been out three times! She also blows the actual street, not just her lawn & sidewalk, & guess what...I watch her sometimes & I can't even see the leaves she is blowing. Fancy that. Invisible leaves!

I love a natural look as well. If I didn't live in a fairly manicured suburb, I'd skip the manicured lawn too. As I mentioned previously, ideally, I'd like to skip the lawn altogether! I do enjoy the woodsy, more free-form mood of my backyard, which feels more like "me."

Tina, I haven't found anyone interested in my pine needles thus far. I agree it would be nice if someone wanted them!

Cyn, thanks so much for explaining, I thought it was a regional thing but you do make sense. Bagging the leaves is a super time consuming process and I could never understand why people go to the lengths they do to do it. We hate it and are just not that meticulous about what our way our yard looks. It's presentable but that's about it.

When you say finally mulched, is that something a riding mower would do? A landscaper used to own this house but you'd never know it by the yard.

Stinky-your neighbor is just the type I can't abide by. I have the most embarrassing beds in the front yard...they're leaf covered, but healthy as all get out!

If we didn't rake up and remove the leaves from our back yard, we would have nothing but mud in the spring. When we bought our house it had a gorgeous green lawn spanning the entire back yard. What fools we were...come spring it was patchy and nearly gone, thanks to the 18 tons of leaves that covered it and killed it off. We're going to add a lot of hardscaping and native beds this year because raking up the leaves would be a lot easier. It's due to the huge poplar and maple leaves...enormous mess, and when they get wet (as they WILL in the PNW), it's even worse.

Stinky, maybe one of us could trade houses with our neighbors-mine do the same thing. I think he is just inefficient, but maybe he is just OCD or avoiding his wife. ;) Anyway, after the switch, they could play dueling power lawn tools with each other and we could enjoy some peace.

Lukki, we have never had a riding mower, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. You may need to make a couple of passes to chop the leaves into fine mulch, but even if not, it shouldn't kill the grass once chopped into small pieces. The leaves will decompose. Oh, and the person riding the mower may want to wear a mask if you are churning up lots of leaves as there is sometimes dust.

Yep, our yard is much more "natural' than those of all our neighbors, but manicured and sterile are not for me. One neighbor across the street actually has his lawn sprayed every month for mosquitoes in the summer. Not sure he realizes that they breed in standing water.

Thanks! I'll let DH know!

Just checking back..had no idea what I had started LOL ! I have always raked and used a push mower and swept with a big 'ole broom. I hate anything that is electric/powered/automatic when I am outside. I have to have the sound of the birds and breeze in the trees.

In this neighborhood we have ALL yard services but me and DH. So guess what they bring...yep...BLOWERS...I would like to ...hmm...well...can't say...but luckily they are paid and they are FAST so they are gone quickly. My neighbor does get out there after dark in leaf season and use his...grrr...he also has a barking dog...I won't even go there. A guy a block away has a blower too and gets out there one day a week and uses it for ...grr...what seems like hours around his pool. Other than that it is SO quiet in this area that I can here the leaves on the trees and my wind chimes LOL...and now we can start a new thread about how the neighbor's wind chimes drive you crazy !! haha.. c

The neighbor has one of those "lawn" services ... Mow, Blow, & Go.

Can you find students/high school kids to do this? Here in LA, it's yard crews or those guys who stand in front of Home Depot, hoping to get hired for day labor.

Natal, that pretty well sums up what my guys do, & they help with the trimming I can't reach. They are cheap & I'm pretty pleased with them. A quick scan of the blower & they're done with it!

Dh works 12-15 hour days at a challenging job & it's just really nice to have this task accomplished. As I mentioned, I do lots of other yard tasks on my own, & dh does yard work too! We actually have a quite modestly sized property, but it Still manages to be a lot of work somehow!

My next-door neighbor doesn't live on a plantation either, but she can find enough debris to vacuum for 45 minute, hour-long, two-hour long daily sessions! That amount of leaf blowing does grate on my nerves! In fact, there's something really, really wrong with that to me, (if I may just be real judgemental & hostile about it!)

Still, I never say a word to her about it. Why bother? It's clear what her priority is: having a leaf-free existence! That's infinitely more important than, well, just about anything else! Leaves. Are. The. Enemy.

Cyn, it would be great if your neighbor & mine could meet! They could spend entire days picking up leaves together & then stand back & revel in leaf-free bliss!