The annual avalanche of falling leaves was a fast one this year. There were a couple of days of good weather for raking and mowing leaves into the grass. I mow leaves to keep them from blowing away and so they’ll decompose faster. Any leaves not shredded by the lawn mower cartwheel down the street or get blown into the neighbor’s yard by the wind. I picked up a few bags of leaves from outside my yard, before the weather dropped into the low teens. Then it rained. Now it’s raining and windy and just miserable in general.
1. The leaves on my neighbor’s dogwood tree turned a lovely red against a blue sky before the weather turned and they fell.
2. All the leaves fall off the plum tree except at the tips where they hang on.
3. This is the only time of year Bradford pear trees are good for something.
4. Their fruit is certainly useless.
5. I’m experimenting with the lowest part of the yard by not mowing the leaves and just leaving them piled up to see what happens. The wind can’t blow them away here.
6. This is one of the big piles of leaves I bagged just before mowing.
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stoneyknob.wordpress.com 
Are Bradford pears not generally useful or is it the tree? Asking for a not very pear savvy friend 😉
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Bradford pears aren’t actual fruit trees. They produce a stinky flower in spring and inedible fruit in the fall. It’s also weak and splits easily without warning. They’ve propagated themselves over much of the south.
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AFter looking at all your leaves that is one aspect of gardening I don’t miss. We just have pine needles form a neighbours tree.:(
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Are those blackjack oak leaves in there?!
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I haven’t heard of that one. There’s a lot of rock oak, some post oak and some maples.
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Post oak would explain it.
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It’s leaf season here too! I have set myself a goal of a bag a day..slow and steady, I think. The leaves go directly into the chicken coop to warm it up and to emerge as almost-compost in the spring!
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I would love to have enough room to make a compost pile. I have to settle for mowing them into the lawn.
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I’ve been working on a bag a day too, except that I fill bags from piles of leaves left in the street. No one here has figured out that leaves are a good thing.
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If that pear tree is such a waste nof space, could you remove it and replace with something more useful/attractive? Life too short to be stuck with crappy plants. Perhaps it is not on your property.
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I would remove it in a hot minute if it was mine. Fortunately, it’s not on my property. It’s in the yard across the street. I warned the owner about them, but he didn’t believe me. I do appreciate the tree once a year when I get its leaves.
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The leaves are so useful for mulch and I usually follow your idea of leaving them where they fall and letting them build up – as long as they’re not all over the lawn. I like your photo of the plum leaves against the sky.
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Thank you! ‘Leave the leaves’ is a theme by the local master gardeners. All sorts of bugs appreciate them more than we do. But leaves that have been run over by a mower make a lovely, fluffy layer in the grass and are decomposed by spring.
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