Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Plastic Fences Make Good Neighbors ?

As I drove through Longmeadow this past week I spotted the many signs of the fall season. In addition to all of the trees still ablaze with remnants of a spectacular season of fall colors, there are the many different methods that abound in Longmeadow for dealing with the leaves after they fall. Longmeadow for many years has not collected leaves at curbside so residents have had to make their own arrangements.

Bagging leaves on some streets is sometimes a contest to see who can bag the most leaves...

Some people rake the leaves to curbside (or into the street) and have them removed.....

I've always been a little bit frustrated that the leaves from my neighbors' trees and lawns blow onto my lawn (I have no maple trees but have a lot of maple leaves)....

Here is a possible solution that one Longmeadow homeowner is trying this year....

It will be interesting to see how effective adding a 3 ft plastic fence around the perimeter of your property is to reduce the volume of leaves.

Perhaps, next year this will become a new "sign" of fall in Longmeadow

1 comment:

alan said...

Why don't more people just mow the leaves into their lawns? Most new lawnmowers have "mulching" decks. These mowers can chew up the leaves into tiny pieces that decompose rapidly into the soil. Not only does this save the inconvenience and expense of leaf disposal, it also helps inhibit the germination of crabgrass and other weeds in the Spring.

Studies done at Michigan State University more than a decade ago proved that this technique works, even on heavily leaf-loaded turf, but for some reason the word hasn't gotten out very well. A good synopsis of the research appears here.