Comments on: Leaf Collection Schedule Released

By: MPinDC

MPinDC — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:05:31 +0000

You have to make like Amelia Bedelia and un-rake your lawn.

By: Juniper Gardener

Juniper Gardener — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:43:53 +0000

It is so sad that our cities encourage the wasteful practice of carting away (with the aid of petroleum products) this wonderful resource for our soils. My neighbor thinks he’s doing me a favor of raking up the leaves in front of my house. He doesn’t understand that it is fall, and my aesthetic says that the look of leaves on the ground is part of the season. And the tree has kindly stored sugars and starches made from its unique capability to harness the power of the sun, and combine it with water and minerals from the soil. A forest is sustainable (meaning it needs no additional ingredients from us to continue to thrive). When we remove the leaves, we deprive our gardens of the ability to sustain themselves.

Leave the leaves–if you must rake them from turf, chop them up and return them to your garden beds, or put them in a pile until they are slightly decomposed and return them to your garden beds in the spring. They make a wonderful, sustainable, attractive mulch, and an excellent alternative to “store-bought” hardwood mulch. Longwood Gardens uses its leaves as mulch–don’t know a higher standard than that.

By: Skeletor

Skeletor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:26:10 +0000

@Anonymous 7:18 – be of good cheer, for in the ten years I’ve lived here, the leaf collection folks have only taken my leaves four times. I’ve had the leaves rot under a pile of snow awaiting pickup on at least 3 occasions. The gleaming machine of progress isn’t going to hermetically seal our lives off from nature anytime soon – at least in the District of Columbia. And between acorn and pecan shell debris, leaf chaff and grass clippings, I don’t think the ground has any want for fresh topsoil.

Andy, I’m guessing most tree growth is from carbon fixing out of the atmosphere. Sorta cool when you think about it.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:04:17 +0000

Thanks! Some geniuses read this blog!

By: The First Anonymous

The First Anonymous — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:47:44 +0000

Anonymous (above) speaks truth. Using Skeletor’s data (300 pounds of leaves removed from an 8,000 sq ft lot), if that 300-pound mass were entirely transmuted to dirt, it would only cover Skeletor’s lot with a layer 4 mils thick (0.004 inches).

[Thanks to Google for calculating "(12 * 25 pounds) / 8000 ft^2 / (2 grams/cm^3) in mils" for me. 'Cause there's no way I would have gotten all those unit conversions right]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:18:24 +0000

Andy:

If you’re concerned or a purist that wants to return to the soil what came from it, you can set up your compost bin in your own back yard quite easily. It’s an excellent seasonal lesson for kids.

The resulting compost is very rich and the best thing you can spread around your trees, garden, and ornamentals. Many people still do, but not enough I suppose.

I’ve never approved of this silly huge enterprise of central leaf collection and have long argued against it. Over the years, millions of our tax dollars have been spent on this silly annual ritual designed by our central planners who claim to know better.

Modern urban life has become far too automated. There’s no longer anyone advocating an alternative and it just isn’t conducive to today’s fast paced city life. Sadly, far too many of our young people are more attached to electronics and soft key board keys like the one I’m typing on now, than the grit and thorns of nature and cultivating something outside their windows.

To help answer your question, it take 100 years of falling leaves to produce less than one inch of top soil.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:32:42 +0000

It seems like trees put out huge amounts of leaves and drop them but the soil under them stays the same.

Does removing leaves mean gradually losing the property that contains the roots of the trees sending up and dropping the leaves that are removed?

Any tree or soil scientists out there who can assuage my fears that leaf removal is gradually taking away the land under my house?

By: Skeletor

Skeletor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:24:43 +0000

I can believe it. I harvest something like 12 bags of leaves from my 8000 sq ft lot. They’ve gotta be about 25 pounds each. I only have two trees in my yard.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:59:15 +0000

Wow! DC plans on collecting “up to 10,000 tons” of leaves. That’s 35 pounds of leaves for every man, woman and child in DC. That’s also 1.6 ounces for every single square yard of land in DC, or 508 pounds per acre. Seems a little high.