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| Green & Growing (Fall 2006) |
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Leaf wars - Special forces battle a nasty fall invader
By Bob Tracinski, master gardener
When leaves fall, two things happen. The beautiful leaves turn into nasty invaders by smothering grass at a critical time, when the lawn is using sunlight to make sugars for a healthy spring green-up.
People arm themselves with special weapons to battle this enemy force. Here are effective war strategies to defend your lawn against invasive leaves.
Build an arsenal
Leaf rakes are necessary because leaves conspire to gather in awkward places. Be sure to wear gloves to prevent blisters. Other good weapons include a power blower to flush leaves out of flower beds, decorative borders and shrubs. In some neighborhoods it’s okay to blow leaves onto the street for curb-side pickup by municipal crews. If that doesn’t work for you, then get inserts for plastic bags. An insert is a reusable plastic sheet that forms a tube you can place inside a plastic bag to create a temporary hopper. The insert helps hold the bag up for stuffing raked leaves or dumping a mower’s grass bagger.
Special teams can be effective when two people work together as “Collector” and “Stuffer.” Get two grass baggers for your walk-behind mower, two inserts, and a box of plastic bags. While the “Collector” mows to gather chopped leaves in a grass bagger, the “Stuffer” places each insert inside a plastic bag. The Collector then takes the mower to the Stuffer, who removes the full bagger and dumps the chopped leaves into a plastic bag. The Collector attaches an empty grass bagger and continues mowing. Because the baggers fill quickly in peak season, the Collector returns often and the Stuffer may have to hustle just to keep up with opening plastic bags, placing inserts, dumping baggers, removing inserts, tying up full bags, and carrying them to the curb for municipal pickup. Here’s a tip: Use a small spring-loaded clamp to hold the top of the plastic bag against the top of the insert.
Go mobile
For larger properties, a lawn tractor is like a battle tank in the war on leaves. You can move faster, chop more leaves, and gather them in a large-volume collection system. In some cases, you can line the baggers with plastic bags.
Some lawn and garden tractors give you rapid mobility combined with special equipment. Large-scale collection systems blow leaves into a huge hopper or into a trailing wagon. And some mowers eliminate the need to collect leaves at all because they pulverize leaf debris into a powder that can be dispersed across the lawn.
Make Peace
Give fallen leaves a chance to do something good by creating nutrient-rich soil. Dump chopped leaves into a backyard composter. For estate-size properties, chopped leaves can be dropped into a pit at the back of the yard, then buried with soil for long-term composting. For people with a woodlot, leaves can be blown in among the trees.
As you gear up to do battle against autumn leaves, arm yourself with the latest weapons and develop a strategy that will work for you.
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