It all depends on your energy level. I can't imagine failing to make compost. It's what happens to everything that grows. it'll happen to us too. If you can adjust your expectations vis-à-vis time, it will all work, in a pile, without recipes, shredding, ratios, additives, turning, or any other bother whatsoever. In New Hampshire (land of cold and wet) we used two piles: this year's and last years. Never had one bit of worry. The whole process ran on "enough time" and applied laziness.

I would never do work for compost except picking up bags of leaves down the street. A huge pile of leaves will compost just as well as the best designed, layered, optimized pile. It just takes longer.

If I get tons of leaves, I put them, bagged and shredded in the shed to add in the spring/summer when I don't have as many browns. Nancy

I am guessing that these "yellow" leaves are fairly fresh, which means the nutrients are still there and have not gone away, In some 40 plus years of making compost and shredding leaves I have not had much of a problem doing that with fresh, or very aged leaves. Wet leaves are another problem, however.

From which tree or shrub are these "yellow" leaves?

kimmq is kimmsr

Leaves will compost just fine at any stage from green to brown. Faster when green, slowest when brown. Bagging them will not hurt but leaves break down only slowly by themselves, so it's best to store them in a pile exposed to weather to get them started till you can add some high nitrogen greens. As opposed to entombing them in a plastic bag where they won't get any air and rain. You can use a circle of chicken wire or any wire fencing, as big as you need. They will shrink down and compact over the winter. By spring you can make some more compost batches with fresh grass clippings, which your neighbors are probably also going to throw away because they aren't as smart as you. :-] Notice, no shredding required in any of this. It does make them go faster but I do what I've described above every year, I have tons of compost, and I rarely shred leaves.

Thanks, everyone, for the advice.

kimmq: There are two leaves that seem to remain yellow longer than leaves from the other trees after they fall. It's been fifty-two years since college biology and my descriptive skills have never been more than average. With that in mind, here goes:

1. A bit wider than long, has four "points", totally smooth edge ( not serrated). Looks similar to a tulip tree leaf. But the fruit is a blackish pod (same shape as a bean pod) about 4-5" in length.

2. Length and width the same (one of the largest I saw was 5"x5", somewhat oval, comes to a single point, smooth edge, did not detect any fruit.

These leaves are quite pliable. I can actually wad them into a tight ball: they pop right back out with no crumbling, tearing and smooth as before.

Any ideas?

Without knowing where in the world you are my best guess would be Maple, Sumac, Aspen, and some others that do not come right to mind.

kimmq is kimmsr

kimmq: error alert!! I drove back to the neighbors' where I found these two types of yellow leaves to verify the descriptions I listed. And, of course, I got things a bit confused.

First, tree #2 (single point) is the one that has the blackish pod. Not tree #1.

Secondly, tree #1 (four points, similar to a tulip tree) has some strange looking fruit. To me it looks like a miniature version of a broom from the days of yore!

My zone is 7a.

Last night, I found a site containing pictures of various trees and their fruit/pods. Tree #2 could very well be a redbud; maybe an eastern redbud. Tree #1 could be a yellow poplar.

Don't know if temperature could be a factor. We've had an unseasonably warm autumn. Today, it's projected to be 68-72 degrees with a low of high 40's. Usually, by early November, there's been at least a killing frost with average temps twenty or more degrees cooler.

toxcrusadr: thanks for suggestion about not needing to shred and keeping the leaves stored outside.

I am a gardener of 40+ years and there is nothing wrong with using yellow leaves.

Your #1 tree with the funny fruit could be a sweetgum. Leaf looks like a big star, fruit is a small ball with spikes all over it like a mine used in the water in WWII. Doesn't really look like a broom though. And the leaf has 5 points not 4.

Pics of Sweet Gum

Thanks for your response and the sweet gum images, toxcrusadr! I remember these sweet gums from my youth ... beautiful autumn colors ... I guess I never knew their true name. What I do remember is being hit by the fruit (gumball?) when "boys were being boys".

After seeing more pics, I'm about 99% sure that tree #1 is a yellow poplar. I don't know how to post images on this site but, if you'll pull up some images, you'll see what I mean by "strange looking fruit".

Zone 7a does not tell us much of anything. Plant Hardiness Zone 7a covers from New York to Nevada.

kimmq is kimmsr

I'm in Daleville, about 10 miles from Roanoke, VA, whose own zone is 7a or 7b, depending on which site you access. At the same time, we're only 35 miles east of Christiansburg, VA where zone 6b is found. This is where you begin climbing out of the valley and heading into the Blue Ridge mountains.

My poplar tree leaves turn yellow, drop and begin to compost on the ground. When I put them in the compost they are somewhat more green than carbon. I love having these in the compost pile - especially when I'm heating it.

That location does help and you will have a variety of trees with leaves that would turn yellow. What might make any leaf a bit more difficult to shred would be moisture content rather than the species of tree the leaf came form. I have found that Silver Maple, Catalpa, Chestnut, Sumac, etc. all shred just fine, while smaller leaves such as Privet, Honeysuckle, Plum, Apple, etc. seem to be small enough to slip right through the shredder.

kimmq is kimmsr

Ah, yellow poplar is a tree I was not familiar with. The leaves really do look like tulip tree leaves. Beautiful flowers too. It must not grow here in MO, probably too cold (zone 5).

To post photos you click the Photo button below the text entry box, browse to your photo and upload it.

I had never heard of yellow poplar. I had a quick Google and it seems it is Liriodendron tulipifera, so no wonder it looks like tulip tree. They are one and the same.