Was it worth it?????

I did about an hour of hand sweeping last week. I have the blister to prove it. Then I gave up and got the mower out!

I must confess to getting the mower out today, there are still a lot of leaves to come but it is good excercise!

Amsterdam: OH gets the mower out also and the back lawn looks good for a while. Then there's a sudden gust..........

An "hour of hand sweeping," Karen? Wow! Ten minutes and I'm finished!

Every little helps! Most of the leaves in my garden are from neighbouring trees ... with many twiggy branches too thanks to the gale force winds :o(

Eirlys...I am like a little slave out there, and yet waistline keeps expanding!

Many plants don't like wet leaves on them so you are luck they are only on the grass and can be mowed up.

At least while they are dry they're reasonably easy to sweep . . . so today's work was worth it, Chris! Sadly, rain expected tomorrow.

I get down on my hands and knees and remove most of them from my borders in Nov-Dec. Its a terrible job, but if I don’t do it the plants rot and the slugs thrive.

Thinking about leaves on borders. Some people claim it is best to leave some leaves as the worms pull them into the soil and offers some protection from frost? Others say it's best to clear them off plants like Siris said. What do people think?

I have always thought that fallen leaves should be removed from the beds but I have left the ones that are under a beech hedge ( for the time being anyway!)

Is it right that the best way to compost them is to put them in black bags and leave them for quite some time? I guess they can also go on the compost heap in small amounts layered with other things.

Chris, if you type 'Black Gold' into the Google Custom Search box (top right of the page) you will find a very helpful blog by Spritzhenry on how to compost leaves.

Karen I guess when you go inside you keep giving yourself treats for all the hard work you do.as for being on your knees do you not have a vacuum shredder I use it around my plants it's not really strong enough to pull the plants out,you don't have to rest it on the plants.

Shirley, thank you, I have just looked at Stera's blog and she explained the process very well.

Thank you for this blog,I do not have trees in my garden,but all my neighbours do,and they come down in my garden,this is our first autumn we have been here and not sure what to do, I will look at black gold blog,thanks again.

Amsterdam - its okay to leave them on bare soil over winter if you want, but its not okay to leave them on anything growing - lawns, evergreen ground cover and plants. But unfortunately, those left on bare soil often don't stay there... if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the blog already mentioned titled Black Gold written by Spritzhenry....

Most of the leaves we get are from a neighbours Sycamore,and as they always look diseased or mottled,I don't fancy composting them..we have an area where we can dispose of them behing our fence,which takes lots of bags full of the darned things ! We got rid of the Alder tree which had the Alder Beetle ,so that's one tree less to bother about..keep up the good work ,Chris..at least this week has been good for getting outdoor jobs done...it has here anyway..:o) xx

I experimented last year by not removing one leaf from one half of the garden and raking clean the other half. The snow flattened the leaf layer and come early spring I place a layer of decorative mulch over the bed of leaves. The result was the perennials popped right through everything and best of all hardly any weed growth whereas the cleaned half had a good amount of weed growth. I am now going to do the same thing with the whole garden this year. The idea came from looking at a forest floor where one hardly sees any weed growth due to inhibition from leaf fall. Of course, my garden is without grass.

Whether that's a viable option or not depends on the planting - if its just herbaceous perennials, it'll work, but if there's small evergreens or shrubs, not so much. I've picked leaves off Yucca flaccida and Hebe youngii twice so far - I'll have to go back and do it again, can't leave them covered in leaves I'm afraid.

I decided not to blow the leaves today as I did it just a few days ago. I know I get obsessed by leaves on the lawns but I must not clear them every day. Behave yourself, Linda. :0/
I keep the leave for leaf mould........great stuff.

I found myself picking up some leaves by hand today........now that IS a worry!!
I did fill two bags of leaves to save for use in the future and remembered to put holes into the bags!

Ha ha, Wildrose - never mind, its good exercise ... but I'm really impressed with the decorative leaf motifs in the title of this blog, how on earth did you do that?

Bamboo, they are on the left of the space bar on our Apple iPad. There is a smiley face that you click on and then get an assortment of pictures to choose from.

As for picking up leaves, not sure about it being good exercise - my back is a bit sore now!!!

Ah, Ipad....the thing I don't possess, nothing like that on my Android tablet... as for the sore back, I know exactly what you mean!

It is a most rewarding task......until the leaves all come down again, mostly neighbours, nearly finished thankfully! it does become a bit of an obsession.....

I got fedup of clearing mine daily and gave up until my apple tree and hawthorn were more or less bare, then had a field day last Saturday, the sun was shining beautifully for most of the day, two bags now hidden away for next year, still a few leaves lying around but I do have a green lawn instead of a dirty brown one, lol..