Household Hints & Help

Almost every day of the year, you can hear a gasoline-powered leafblower at some point during the day. In the fall, of course, it's truly maddening. Maybe the electric and battery-powered ones aren't so bad.


I understand the difficulty of raking lots and lots of leaves. Have you considered just leaving them in place? This article recommends doing that to give pollinators and other invertebrates cover for over-wintering:
https://xerces.org/blog/leave-the-leaves

I may do that in part of my yard, at least. I have a very large oak tree, a tall tulip poplar, and numerous other lesser trees (not to mention the ones that drift over from the neighbors' yards!). I rake the leaves -- a task made easier by using a leaf chute:

I usually end putting 25 or so bags of leaves on the curb every fall, even though I stomp them down to pack them pretty tightly. So I can appreciate what an onerous job it would be to rake a big yard with lots of trees. Maybe this year I'll leave some in place and compost some -- although I don't really have a good place to put a compost bin in my little yard.

My post isn't meant to be critical of you, so I hope you won't take it that way. Just wanted to offer some food for thought.