Last summer (when there were no leaves falling), in a fit of environmental enthusiasm, I fired the lawn service with their big, noisy gas guzzling leaf blowers and took over the job of caring for our yard myself. Jack, my ever supportive but sometimes skeptical husband, suggested that keeping leaves off the driveway and front yard may be a little challenging in the fall. He wondered (out loud) if I’d be able to do it.
The comment was slightly manipulative and completely effective. Since leaves began falling in earnest a few weeks ago, I have been slightly obsessed with keeping them off the driveway, just in case SOMEONE thought I couldn’t do it.
I have my trusty little battery operated leaf blower but even with this marvelous tool, I’m here to tell you that efficiently blowing leaves is harder than it looks. The first few times I think I managed to blow them from one side of the driveway to the other without ever really getting them into a pile.
But practice (lots of it) has improved my skills. My battery only lasts 20 – 30 minutes but this is generally enough time to blow off the driveway and make a dent in the moss “lawn” in the back.
Once I have a nice pile gathered together, I get out my electric leaf mulcher. Since I only have a push mower, I have no other way to chop up the leaves to use as mulch and compost. But the mulcher is a great machine. It takes almost no time to pour a trash can of leaves through the mulcher to get a small basket full of cut leaves, particularly if there are no sticks amongst the leaves.
I used some of my newly mulched leaves to put around the pansies I just put out along the street front. Frankly, it’s hard to tell the difference between the oak leaves I just gathered up and the chopped up oak leaves that I just put back down in the same place. I have confidence, though, that the shredded leaves will decompose more quickly and serve to keep down the weeds and provide some protection from the cold, as any good mulch should do.
During my hours of blowing leaves, I have had ample opportunity to make some autumn observations. For example, the crepe myrtle trees were the first to lose their leaves, followed quickly by a large oak tree that has shown signs of stress in past years. The leaves on the water oaks in the back haven’t even begun to turn and fall, though the large sweet gum tree is almost bare limbed now.
There is a certain satisfaction in clearing a path clean enough to get cars in and out of the driveway and an even greater satisfaction in using every leaf that falls in our yard. They either go directly on the planting beds or are cut up for compost.
An unexpected benefit from all this is that I’ve made friends with the other lawn caretakers in the neighborhood. We compare notes and commiserate when leaves turn wet and are hard to get up. And, I have new found respect and appreciation for what they do and how hard they work though I really, really wish they would trade in their horrifically loud gas blowers for relatively quiet electric ones.
Fall is young yet and Jack may prove to be right but for now, I’m happy and energized caring for this piece of land I call home.