start evolving ... to use this to your advantage ...

basically you are complaining that free mulch is provided.. and you cant cope with removing all that free stuff ... ponder that ...

so.. over the next few years... transform your garden.. and then be happy all summer.. when you dont have to weed... or water.. or anything.. because God provided for you ...

when i moved from suburbia to 5 acres .. i had to come to this wisdom ... because i wasnt going to be out there going all anal retentive on my garden beds .. lol ... i mean really ... i dont clean the house.. exactly how many hours am i going to invest in cleaning the freaking yard ...lol

in later spring.. most things.. like hosta.. can lift the stuff enough.. that i can walk around out there. and just rustle up the leaves enough to allow them the sunshine ...

and most the weed seed cant germinate on top... and it keeps the soil colder deeper into spring.. up here where i can have frosts and freezes thru mid may .. since the sun cant warm the soil.... things stay dormant a week or two longer.. probably until warm spring rains ... get below the mulch...

this is a god send.. if you can just adapt to it .. it might not be viable to have that cottage garden... or whatever you might call your style of garden ... maybe its time to go all native woodland garden ..

trust me.. this might pay off big time as you get older .. i wish i could do just half the things i put off when i was younger.. lol .. ponder that too ...

i hear you.. im trying to show you a bright side ... if i hear any random cursing on the night wind tonight.. i will suspect you read this.. and dont approve ... lol

ken

Deanna, are these leaves left from the fall, or are they ones that have fallen over winter? I have oaks too, and it is kind of a pain that so many leaves stay up till about March. But just wondering if you do fall clean-up?

I shred my leaves in the fall and put down mulch then. It is a tad bit more time-consuming to rake the newly fallen leaves gently off the mulch, but at least this way I'm not disturbing as many insects, etc.

:)
Dee

We have a lot of trees and leaves in the fall. We allow them to stay where they drop in our back shrub beds. We mow the leaves off the lawn, which chops them, then add them into the veggie beds or perennial beds. But there is a sycamore in the next yard and those huge suffocating leaves fall after we've already cleaned everything up. They usually end up on top of all our nice chopped leaves. The bulbs seem to have managed to push their way up. When I am ready to clean up the bed, I rake them onto the grass, mow them, clean up the perennials and then add the chopped leaves back in as mulch. I find that a soothing routine that is not too difficult. But we do have a small property so I'm sure that makes a difference.

We blow all the leaves out of the shrubbery really well in the fall- some we shred and return while others go to the leaf composting pile we keep out in the woods.

But yes, some always get stuck in conifers or dense shrubs and annoy me.

So I instituted a spring blow as well- just one more day of spring cleanup. I have husband go shrub to shrub with a blower as I go shrub to shrub with a poking stick and we get most of them. And we have massive amounts of red and white oak leaves.

For me the key is to do it more often in the fall. Our tendency is to wait until everything has fallen and do a weekend of heavy raking and blowing, but it works much better if we do it more frequently as they come down.

Of course one can't prevent neighbor leaves from blowing in- that's just life- we clean it up, that's all. For me I have learned the hard way that the better job we do in the fall the easier spring is. It's not intuitive for me- in spring I am gung-ho but by fall I've lost my garden mojo. But since I learned my fall cleanup lesson I go do it anyway and then when this time of year hits I am so happy I did!

And this year has been unusually windy. I've had a lot of my leaves blow out of the yard, which means I'm going to have to buy more mulch to cover the beds that don't have the thick layer they usually do.

We don't have a blower. I can see where you have a big job and that must help. Our property is small. I'm usually pruning most shrubs every season, even if it's just a little, so I just pull the leaves by hand. I do have an old Kolkwitzia - that has been here before I was, over 40 years old and that has a lot of leaves stuck in the middle making a mess. I did a small pruning on it and left the leaves for now. After it blooms the 1st of June, I plan to give it a hard pruning and dig out all those leaves out of the center. I guess I'll have to do a better job of keeping them out.

This morning is 20F on my back porch, which is hard to believe. I'm afraid to go out and see what's happened out there. So I had planned on cleaning up some of the beds and uncovering perennials that have already put on quite a bit of growth above the leaf mulch, but I'm going to delay doing that again.

Generally I've gotten used to having a few leaves sitting around and no longer hunt every last one down, but then again I don't have oaks. Those big, leathery red oak leaves are a whole different story, and they usually hold that shape and orange color for a while, so it's not like my little maple leaves that fade away by August! I'd start growing a garden that doesn't need as much cleanup, or allows for easier cleanup. Call it a wildlife garden and if you don't get to the cleanup until June just leave it! Solomon seal comes up really nice through any leaf mat, asters and goldenrod as well. Daylilies, hostas...

The mower is my best friend in the fall. I just mow everything and most of the leaves disappear into the lawn or I dump the bag into a bed. Not to brag but I could hide 4 or 5 lawnmower bags in just one small pachasandra bed. Epimediums? Hellebores? I've been known to mow them in the fall as well.

Don't hate spring. Get rid of the slimy lambs ears and stop wondering what's dying. If it dies it dies and you can plant something less fussy.

Deanna - I don’t think I’ve had much of a problem with matting of leaves on Perennials. There are two beds that are near the sycamore and those do get a lot of those big leaves, the rest of the yard only gets chopped leaves and Silver Maple leaves that are pretty small. I did notice in one bed today that Ladies Mantle and Lamium were having a hard time. They are still completely under leaves, but I’m leaving them covered until the cold is done. I don’t have the energy to run out and cover anything up at night. [g]

I don’t have a problem with Mums either. I leave the entire plant to stay up all winter and that keeps the new growth from having leaves on the top of them for the most part. I can see the new growth at the base pretty early, but I still haven’t cut them back. I’m tired of looking at the mess, so the forecast is for more 40s overnight coming up, so I probably will bite the bullet and start cleaning up some of that bed soon.

I envy you your Scotch and Irish moss. They won’t grow for me. I’ve planted them about 4x already and they just peter out. You must have conditions that they enjoy.

Deanna, I saw this article this morning and thought of you. 😃

Oaks: The Most Powerful Plant of All

kabob--I can't imagine a leaf that disintegrates. Our entire property is mostly red oak. I do have some poplars, but I don't remember seeing their leaves. I think the red oak leaves--leathery is the perfect word, and in spring you can add slimy--eat the poplar leaves when they hit the ground.

PM, my lamium and lungwort suffer. We are safe from low temps for at least a week so I'll try to go out today and uncover their crowns.

LOVE these quotes from the article:

"Right. I was interested in the book to note that you note that two possible, very practical advantages that leaf litter, oak leaf litter in particular, offers is that it may suppress the incredible spread of the invasive Japanese stiltgrass, and also Asian jumping worms, which are another threat to forest, especially forest, ecosystems."

YES! That's how amazingly suffocating they are--it can even suppress (a nice word for smother) stilt grass AND jumping worms! (I had jumping worms in the last few years but couldn't find many last year. Do I have my red oak leaves to thank?!)

"Leaf litter of course, it’s the blanket that protects our soil. And if that blanket doesn’t make it through the summer, which many other trees’ leaf litter doesn’t, so things like maple and birches and tulip trees, they disintegrate very quickly, but oak, oak-leaf litter can last up to three years after it falls. That provides a permanent cover and that’s exactly what all of the creatures that live in the soil, and there are more species that live in the soil than live above the soil, they need that protective blanket to maintain the moisture level, to return nutrients to the soil, put that organic material into the soil. And again, oak leaves are better than most other trees in terms of doing that."

YES! And, this is why I can't do spring clean-up. At least half of our 2 acres is natural under canopy with years of undisturbed oak leaves. Critters there are safe. In the garden, I just can't disturb it in spring knowing there's Little Folks under there waiting to wake up. I don't want to endanger any that might be in the garden. Found a wooly bear last spring, all cuddled up and waiting, under a huge pile of leaves that had blown into a corner of the stone patio. The pile was smothering my rock plants that need good drainage, ie., don't like sleeping under oak leaves. The wooly bear won.

"Once the sun sets on Aug 31st, the garden gets practically no attention, and it's going to be that way for at least one more year, if not longer."

What is it about Aug 31st that is your cut-off date for the year?

I only have one oak tree down by the road, so oak leaves aren't a problem for me. They just get shredded along with everything else with DH"s tractor attachment that shreds and collects as he goes -- he empties the tractor bins into the paper bags or piles them in an out-of-the way place for me until I get around to laying them on the beds.

Ken gave great advice -- learn to embrace what you have, work with it not against it. Maybe keep one or two small areas to grow plants that suffer under the oak leaves, "special" areas that you baby that would be easily manageable and not take too much time to clean out the leaves.

School begins and I homeschool. Between that and being actively involved in HS fall sports, life gets busy. Weekends are usually spent at sport events. Won't be too long before I have more time, but then I'll be sad, too! Wish I could have more time for a different reason. Just occurred to me, this fall might be better because one will be able to drive. I'll still be gone on weekends, but perhaps I'll have time in the afternoon on weekdays. Could it be?!

last fall I did do some work in those special areas, which aren't that big. Doesn't matter because the winter winds will always blow more leaves in. That's the big thing I have to figure out.

If katob can find time to bucket his snowdrops, I can figure out how to make this work! Maybe I need some buckets...

Lol, buckets solve everything!

"Just occurred to me, this fall might be better because one will be able to drive". That is the scariest thing I've read this week. Mine has a year and a half to go and I'm trying to ease in to it with a few back out of the garage moments, but while the thought of this one driving worries me, the thought of the next one on the road terrifies me!

Suddenly fall leaves don't seem like such a big deal, and at least your teenagers are somewhat useful as help. All mine want to do is throw axes at trees which don't want axes in them, or plant flowers where I already have "not so nice" plants. Also neither of them are impressed by snowdrops, and of course I blame their mother for that.

Oh, yes, katob. I have traumatic memories of one child learning to drive on the interstate and coaching her through letting a semi merge onto her lane, a lane which was about to end and send the semi on the rough shoulder. She wouldn't slow down and let him in! After we had all started breathing again, and I mouthed, "I'm sorry," to the freaked out semi driver, who probably drove the rest of the day with damp pants, I asked her why she didn't slow down to let him in. She had right of way, but she clearly needed to give him access. She said, "I forgot about using the brake."

{8-o

This was after the $500 required class with 30 hours of classroom time and 10 hours with an "official" driver before I was allowed to drive with and teach her.

(If I ever call you a kabob, it's autocorrect, not me.)