Re: Ray's One Man Campaign ...

On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 07:49:39 -0800 (PST), "Cat(h)" <cathy_ie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Nov 7, 3:39 pm, "WhiteWolf! <rayh<spam>@iol.ie>" <r...@xxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 04:23:23 -0800 (PST), "Cat(h)" <cathy...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 6, 10:48 pm, jl <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <HZJQk.27355$j7.489...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
   Sophistry Made Simple <spamala...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Indeed, I just don't understand this compulsive bagging of leaves, they
rot down so quickly that they almost seem to melt away...

In fact, if you have a lot of trees, the best fertilizer they can have is
rotting leaves. They contain everything a happy tree needs.

To be fair to Ray, I am wondering whether the leaf-bagging obsession
is not the result of neighbourly pressure, or even some written or
unwritten by law?

No...  We had a HA in California and they whined about the grass if it was half
an inch too tall...  Once they whined that the garage door was needing
painting... I painted it...  They whined it was the wrong colour (I matched what
it was before) and they told me to repaint it or face fines...  I asked them
what damn color should I paint it...  They wrote back...  Didnt' know exactly,
but they'd know it when they saw it...  FFS!!!  Like art I guess, right?  Around
that time we were preparing to uproots to MA anyway...  And one of the
preconditions to buying a house here was NO HA...  Now we don't have to ask
permission to plant a tree or get letters telling us our new screen door doesn't
match the other screen doors in the 'hood...  <shudder>

I seem to recall hearing of housing estates where all homeowners/
occupiers had an obligation to maintain their garden (clipping lawns
and hedges, etc.).  Maybe this falls into the same category?
Leaves don't last long in my garden either, because they get blown
out, but then, Autumn and Winter wind storms which denude trees of all
their leaves within a couple of hours are a bit of an Irish
speciality.

Caít()

They never blow our of here... Intact our driveway is now so covered in leaves,
you can't see the driveway at all, and my truck looks like it's some sort of
camouflage army truck with all the leaves over it!  :(

I can well imagine that rotting leaves can make driveways and paths
slippy and dangerous in winter, so some level of cleaning is
necessary.

The first year I was here... I didn't know anyone and didnt' know much about the
winters here... So I let a whole lot of pine needles sit on the driveway and
then the snow came and followed by a brief warm period... Result, we had 2
inches of ice on the drive that I couldnt' even get up with a shovel! The pine
needles knitted the ice so that it was like concrete! I learnd that lesson and
now make sure the driveway is clear before the snow starts to fall...


If you have any good size garden, leaf mulch is very good. All you
need to do is to gather the leaves and store them in a specially made
compost heap - they tend to rot down much more slowly than other
organic material, so generally gardeners tend to deal with them
separately from the compost proper.
But as others have said, after a few months breaking down, they make a
great mulch, and if you use the said mulch to spread over the ground
in your ornamental or veg beds, you will keep the moisture in, and
significantly reduce the need to pull weeds. The mulch does not blow
around, because it is moist and heavier than the loose leaves were.
I use my lawn clippings that way, because i have nowhere near enough
trees losing their leaves for the purpose.

Caít()


Too many leaves... I can't even see the grass outside for leaves now because
the heavy rain knocked tons more down... I can't rake them today - they are
wet... But I need to do it this weekend or something...

I do leave leaves near the trees for them... And I leave leaves in the
flowerbeds to protect the bulbs so they might come back next spring sort of
thing... But we have some 40 trees, some 35 of which shed each year... That
is too many leaves to not rake... They are inches high on the grass and kill the
grass and I've even planted grass seed trying to get grass to grow... I've got
to rake 'em...

A great MANY of my neighbours around here rake them and put them in the paper
bags as well... I can't drive 100 yards without seeing a yard without some leaf
bags outside...

It's just what we have to do...

Someone in this thread, not sure it was you, asked about responsibility with
regard to leaves... We don't HAVE to rake, but unless we want a dead lawn we
MUST (rake)... But with snow it's different... The rules state that you must
clear your own driveway, but you must not distrupt traffic (in otherwords, no
throwign your snow onto the main road) and, if you have a sidewalk (Footpath)
outside your home, you are responsible for clearing it so that people can walk
it safely (I think this is the local authority's job, since that is considered
public highway, not private walkway, but howsever... If you have a fire hydrant
on you property, you have to ensure the fire brigade can get to it... Ie... You
have to plough the snow from away around it...

All this would be easy... But for the city plough that come along and throw 3
feet of wet snow in your newly ploughed yard and you plough it again, and you
are about to put your snow plough away and look and behold the bastards are back
and suddenly you have more snow to clear... This has happened to me on more
than one occassion...

We do use pet safe ice melter by the garage because we own pets and we don't
want to poison the squirrels or whatever animal might come by... It's slower to
work then the "regular" stuff, but at the end of the day... We don't want to
hurt any animal for the sake of having a skid free driveway...

End of rant.

Ray


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?If you're a liberal, anything you say is protected. If you're a conservative,
anything you say is hateful.? - Laura Schlessinger
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