BetsyK
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Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:27 pm
Location: South West PA

Autumn leaves on spring borders.

This is my first post to this forum. I have been reading lots of interesting posts, but nothing that addresses my current problem. My neighbor has 7 chestnut trees. They are giant sized and produce lots of chestnuts and even more leaves. These leaves blow around my house and onto my borders which are planted with small spruces, junipers and other nice border plants. Now it is spring and I have the job of clearing all these thousands of leaves from the borders. I have to tell you...I am not lazy..but at 70 yrs I no longer can spend as much energy and time on gardening tasks as I once did. My thoughts are....is there a way to lay something on top of the borders in the fall, before the leaves cover them? I tried to block them with a vertical mesh fence this year but they are very persistant and jumped right over my fence. Could I lay this mesh down on the plants and just pull it off in the spring. It seems like it might work, but sometimes I miss details which make my plans go awry. Any advise would be appreciated.

BetsyK

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Jess
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Posts: 1023
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:50 pm
Location: England

Hi Betsy :)

Chestnut leaves can be very heavy when wet and in large numbers in the Autumn. I don't know if the mesh would be strong enough to take the weight and might bow and break your plants underneath. My suggestion would be buy a leaf blower! Buy a decent powerful one and just blow them off of the border into a nice big heap. It is actually quite fun. To save picking them up try and find a secluded part of the garden and just cover them with a weighted sheet of dark plastic and leave them to rot down.

BetsyK
Newly Registered
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:27 pm
Location: South West PA

Hi Jess,

You are sure busy on this forum. I had thought of a leaf blower but haven't any experience with them. I will borrow one to see how it goes and if it does the job, I will get one. Once they are in the yard, I have a buggy that attatches to my riding mower that will scoop them up for me. There is just too much yard to rake by hand.

Again, thanks
Betsy

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Jess
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Posts: 1023
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:50 pm
Location: England

BetsyK wrote:Hi Jess,
You are sure busy on this forum. Betsy
I got rained off of work today so if I can't do gardening I can at least talk gardening! :lol:



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