Should you rake your yard in the Fall? This is a question many people ask. With the weather turning colder, we care less and less about our lawn. People are tired of mowing and caring for their landscaping and it’s easy to want to forget it for the rest of the season. However it is a season of change for your yard and landscaping as well, and you may be wondering how those leaves are affecting our Quad Cities yards. So what DO you do with those leaves? To rake or not to rake is the question!
Leave Them Where They Fall?
People sometimes leave the leaves that fall from the trees for the same reason they may “mulch” their yard with grass clippings. They think it will provide nutrition for the yard. This may not be the right choice, however, and here’s why. Leaves essentially block the yard from all of the things that it still needs: water, fertilizer, sun. It may be that the leaves block in too much moisture in some cases (however that isn’t the case this year, right Quad Cities?)
For these reasons we don’t think that leaving them is the right choice. Remove the leaves and bag them up (many places in the Quad Cities areas have burn bans, so please pay attention to your local laws on this matter!)
Other Great Reasons to Rake Your Leaves
- Clearing the leaves from landscaping will make it much easier to work on your landscaping come the Spring.
- Bugs and other varmints like to live in those leaves. You can keep them away from your home and foundation by raking them up!
- Don’t forget the gutters! Leaves in your gutters can make water flow over the top of the gutters which can lead to problems for your landscaping around your home and cause water to build up around the foundation of your home as well. That could mean big, expensive foundation problems like leaks, bowing walls or cracks.
For more information contact us at any time. It’s a beautiful time of year, so get out there and enjoy it by cleaning up your yard and landscaping. Pretty soon we’ll be stuck inside and wishing we could get out and rake the yard. Have a great Autumn, Quad Cities!
