Leaf removal: when red, yellow, and brown are actually green! Ahhh…..Fall! What comes to your mind when you hear that word? 
What comes to my mind is shorter days, cooler temperatures, wind, rain, dark green and lush lawns, wet feet, beautiful colors, and lots of leaves. All of these go with the territory. The overall reaction to all of this should be positive, there is a lot of beauty out there to trump the negative aspects. Granted, leaf removal can be overwhelming, but there are ways to make it palatable.
The simplest and least painful way to get rid of the burden of collecting and disposing leaves is to hire it out. This obvious tactic requires no work but it does cost money. If you want to spend a little money on it and benefit an organization, try hiring a not-for-profit organization. We have a client that allows a Boy Scout troop to camp out on their property for a weekend and gives them a donation for their work. That’s a pretty neat deal for both parties.
Raking and blowing leaves can become tedious, tiring, and time consuming. But, you get great exercise and fresh air while doing it, if you don’t use the blower for endless hours. Blowing leaves is pretty quick and not as tiring as raking. But blowing leaves hour upon hour is annoying. A whole lot of noise and air pollution is the result. If you don’t like raking, try mowing the leaves into windrows and then scooping them onto a tarp. The mowing helps chop them up, thus reducing the overall volume of debris to be moved away.
Beyond the negative aspects of using a gasoline blower for leaf removal, the next big problem can be the disposal of the leaves. Putting leaves into garbage bags and hauling them to the landfill is a less than desirable method of disposal. What a waste, more plastic goes into the landfill and a great source of nutrients is totally wasted. Okay then, what do you do with all that organic material?
As a business we offer leaf removal. We suck the leaves into a truck and bring them back to our nursery, then we mulch our lined out nursery stock with them. This really helps with weed control, moisture retention, and returns vital nutrients to the soil. A homeowner can do a similar thing. Chopped up leaves are a great mulch, try using them in your planting beds. Or, create a compost pile and use the by-product later in your gardening projects. Leaves are an organic product of the earth, let’s return them to the soil. Good things happen when that is accomplished.
Leaves can also be returned to the soil in your lawn. Mulching blades are available for lawn mowers. If you mow often enough to stay ahead of leaf drop you can mow your leaves and let them filter through the grass blades. Your lawn will reap many benefits.
Let’s think of leaf removal as earth renewal. Turn a burdensome task into a valuable exercise. Positive things will come out of this. So, therefore…..red, yellow, and brown leaves are actually green! Instead of leaf removal, let’s call it leaf revival.