I have an acre and a half of land do I rake the leaves up now or wait until the winter is over?

Question

do the leave protect the ground?

Answer 1

as others have answered, if you have leaves covering grass, it would be devistating to your grass to let the leaves lie. If you just have a natural landscape that is wooded, then leave the leaves. They will decompose and turn into humus which will help feed your trees and natural surroundings. If you want alternatives to raking, Hiring labor is an option as others have mentioned. Also, if you have a garden tractor type lawnmower there are leave bagging implements that can be purchased to pull behind your mower. I have seen people use a leave blower to blow the leaves into a giant pile on a plastic tarp and then drag the leaves to a disposal area or burn them off. Commercial type zero radius lawn mowers also can be converted to a giant leave vaccuum with a special impellar kit and bags on the rear of the unit. You may want to contact a local lawn maintenence company to see if they offer this service, especially with the acreage you have. I hope this helps and good luck

Answer 2

To answer that question you will have to answer these questions to arrive at the correct solution. First what level of maintenance do you keep your lawn/landscape? If its mowed once a week and that's about it, then don't worry about the leaves. If however you maintain it similarly to a golf course, then you'd be very unhappy with lots of leaves blowing about. Depending upon the equipment at hand, you could mulch them, blow them, vacuum them. Then you could turn them into compost. Of course if the prospect of having a giant pile of rotting leaves is not your idea of fun, then you could have them removed from the property. The easiest method, depending upon how many trees you have would be to simply mow them up with a mulching mower. If you have too many leaves to do that without creating a blanket of chopped leaves, then by all means remove them by one of the afore mentioned methods. There are some advantages to mulching leaves as they do return nutrients to the soil. However, depending upon the trees they may in fact cause some some pH concerns over the long term. You have to weigh the pro's and con's and go from there. Good Luck.

Answer 3

Yes the leaves protect the ground and they also fertilize it from the leaves turning to mulch which is good for it, I wouldn't even rake after the winter unless you have mass leaves. Where are you!

Answer 4

You have 1.5 acres of land. You are rich. Pay somebody to do it for you.
And...Leaves block sunlight to grass. If covered for more than a few days, the grass will die and become yellow.

BTW i'm not being cynical. If you really are rich pay someone to do it. If not, schedule an afternoon with your family, and get it over with now, because it will suck doing it all at once at the end when the leaves weigh more from being soaked and stuff.

I've done it both ways and doing it several times throughout the season is best.

Answer 5

Depends on what they are falling onto. Leaves left on the lawn smother the grass if they get wet and stay wet through the winter. Leaves on dirt are OK, slippery, but OK

Another thought is to collect them and put them around tender plants and a mulch.

Again, gather them together (minus the twigs and junk), run over them with the lawn mower to shred them and then either put that in the compost, turn back into the soil, or mulch around tender plants.

Then again, if you live in a dry climate where rain or snow is light, let the leaves dry and blow into your neighbors yard.......that's what my neighbors do to me.

Answer 6

Wet leaves will set up a bunch of fungal problems is you have St. Augustine grass. If you only have a field, let the leaves stay.

You can always use your riding mower and mulch it up.
Personally, I would mulch once a month, but in Dallas, it hardly ever gets so cold that the grass quits growing

Answer 7

If the leaves have fallen on grass I would rake them up and compost them. When you say protecting the ground what exactly are you protecting?

Answer 8

The land will be better off if you leave them on the ground. They will help keep the moisture in and act as mulch.

Answer 9

An acre could be extra beneficial, 2 acres even extra beneficial. 0.5 an acre isn't undesirable, yet no longer plenty room for a horse. additionally, horses do no longer decide to be stored on my own. they're very social creatures and require a small herd for psychological wellbeing and protection. Nature designed them to stay in a herd putting. Horses who're stored on my own, extraordinarily in this form of small area often develop behavioral themes or good vices. Human companionship can not replace the will for socialization with different equines. that ought to kinda be like locking your baby in her room and in ordinary terms allowing her dogs in to bypass to. it somewhat is my suggestion which you board the horse someplace so it could have turnout with a small team of different horses, that's what could be in the terrific interest of the horse. my own horse develop into stored on my own formerly I have been given him as a results of fact he develop right into a stud colt and while he develop into finally presented right into a herd putting, he develop into picked on very badly as a results of fact he did no longer understand a thank you to socialise with different horses. he's no longer on the backside of the pecking order anymore, despite if it took him over a twelve months to stand up for himself and enable me enable you to already know, tending to new conflict wounds on a daily basis isn't relaxing. i'm hoping this helps on your selection.

Answer 10

Just leave them on the ground and mow over them. That chops them up and it becomes a great compost for your lawn. But don't leave the leaves whole. They have to be chopped up. Or else fungus can grow.