For The Best Results, This Is When You Should Clear The Leaves From Your Yard
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
Nothing says it's autumn like falling leaves covering your yard. Hues of red, yellow, and orange can turn any landscape into a vibrant canvas. While looking at the fall beauty might cause you to want to leave the leaves for days (or even weeks) to come, there is actually a best time to clear the fallen leaves from your yard. Some homeowners prefer to wait until the last leaf has fallen from the tree before breaking out the rake and leaf bags, but this leads to a huge leaf-raking mistake that creates the perfect environment for mold growth.
To help keep your yard mold-free, aim to remove the leaves as soon as you can — preferably, multiple times throughout the season. Overall, you'll want to implement this approach regardless of the weather, but pay special attention to when rain's in the forecast and clear any leaves from your yard beforehand. Damp leaves can become slimy and moldy, and they can easily break apart if left to sit for an extended period of time. This will make for a tough time to collect them all — by gathering the dry leaves multiple times over the autumn, you'll be sure to get every last one. To make this task easier for yourself, try to rake for ten minutes a day, depending on the amount of leaves you have. This will help you keep on top of the task, without it becoming overwhelming.
More leaf-gathering tips
If spending multiple times over the season cleaning your yard isn't your cup of tea, don't worry — there are still other tips that make raking the leaves in your yard a quick and easy job. First, you can always choose to make one pass with your rake once all the leaves are down, gathering as many as you can, then mulch the rest with your lawn mower. This will save you time and labor while still providing your lawn with beneficial nutrients as the shredded leaves decompose. While taking this approach, don't forget your leaf blower, which will help you to quickly gather the leaves into large, manageable piles, especially from hard-to-reach areas like flower beds or around fences. To make the pile easy to move, consider raking or blowing onto a tarp, which you can then simply drag to your compost bin or curbside collection area for easy disposal.
There is also a smart leaf blower alternative that will change the way you remove fallen leaves from the yard that you can purchase — a leaf vacuum. This genius invention takes the work out of leaf cleaning by sucking up leaves. There are hand-held units available that even shred them directly into an attached bag, like this WORX 3-in-1 Electric Leaf Blower, Leaf Vacuum & Leaf Mulcher, so disposal is much simpler and more compact. The push vacuums, similar to the GARDENA Lawn and Leaf Collector, have wheels, making it easy to push them across your lawn and significantly less strenuous than raking.