15 Tips for Clearing Leaves in Your Yard This Fall

Leaf clean up doesn’t have to be difficult or consume your weekends. Use the right techniques and tools to make the job faster, easier, and more efficient.

Remove Leaves Soon

Clean up leaves as soon as you can. Dry, freshly fallen leaves are easier to move than leaves that remain on the lawn for a long time. 

Leaves on the lawn block sunlight, foster mold, and can become slippery and dangerous. After long enough, the leaves decompose and are almost impossible to pick up.

Divide leaf removal into several smaller jobs rather than one big project. If you prefer to remove leaves only once, get to it as soon as possible—just after the last leaves have fallen.

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Move Leaves With a Tarp

Sometimes, you must move a large pile of leaves off the lawn or to the street for municipal collection. A thick tarp makes this easier.

Spread the tarp on the grass near the leaves. Carefully rake the leaves onto the tarp. Grab each of the four corners with a partner, but do not lift the tarp. Slide the tarp to its destination. 

Use a heavy-duty, tear-proof polyethylene tarp, 16 mil or thicker. Don’t use plastic sheeting; it will tear when you slide it. 

Use the Correct Rake

Make sure you own a few different types of rakes that let you move more leaves with less effort: 

• Plastic leaf rake: This rake’s wide, fan-shaped head gathers broad swaths of leaves.
• Lawn rake: With flexible, springy tines, this rake grabs smaller debris embedded in the lawn’s thatch.
• Garden rake: A garden rake’s rigid teeth clear leaves and debris from dirt and garden beds. Flip the rake’s head upside-down and use the rake to push leaves across the grass or to compact leaves in the yard waste bin.

Vacuum the Leaves

Vacuum the fallen leaves and collect them in bags for easy disposal.

The best leaf vacuums also have a shredding component. Between the vacuum nozzle and the collection bag is a shredder that reduces the leaves by as much as 11 to one.

Blow the Leaves

Blow the leaves in combination with raking them. Blowing leaves reduces the physical effort of raking and allows you to clear leaves from sensitive areas that would be damaged with a rake.

Leaf blowers work best on dry leaves, so get to them soon after they fall. 

Create Small Piles

Moving a giant pile of leaves across the lawn is hard and takes too long. Eventually, the pile will become so large that it can no longer be moved.

Break up the leaves into small piles or rows throughout the lawn. Smaller piles are more manageable to move and collect in bins or yard waste bags.

Push the Leaves

Push piles of leaves instead of pulling them or sweeping them sideways with a rake.

Use a rigid tool with a broad head to push the leaves. Do not use a leaf rake, as it might break. A push broom or an upside-down garden rake works well for pushing piles of leaves.

Mulch the Leaves

Mulch the leaves to reduce their overall size for easier disposal or dispersal. 

With an electric leaf mulcher, a pile of leaves can be reduced to as little as one-sixteenth of its original size. The leaf mulcher shreds the leaves with a metal blade of a plastic string similar to those found on weed trimmers.

Drop leaves in small handfuls. The leaves will be shredded and deposited directly in the bin or bag below. Some leaf shredders will even chip up limbs up to 2 inches in diameter.

The result is a dense pile of leaves that can be packed into the yard waste bin or paper bags. Or, disperse the shredded leaves around the yard as nutrient-rich mulch.

Mow the Leaves

Instead of using a leaf mulcher to shred leaves, shred them with your lawn mower.

Light, newly fallen leaves can be shredded in place with the mower. There is no need to rake the leaves into piles.

After mowing, ensure the mulched leaf material left behind is not too thick. It must seamlessly integrate with the turf. If it doesn’t, mow it once again.

Compost the Leaves

Shred the leaves to make compost in a compost pile or bin. 

To make compost, you need green and brown materials. Green materials include kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, plant discards, and grass trimmings. Brown materials are things like chipped tree limbs, cardboard, newspaper, sawdust, and fallen leaves.

After shredding the leaves, add them to the compost bin, compost pile, or DIY compost tumbler. Add brown to green materials at roughly a 2:1 ratio. So, for every two buckets of leaves and other brown materials, add one bucket of veggie peelings and other green materials.

Cover Excess Leaves

When you have collected more leaves than you can dispose of promptly, cover them with a tarp and weigh down the tarp.

Leaves left exposed become wet and heavy, making them more difficult to move. When enough time passes, roots and fungus grow within the leaves. 

Cover the leaves fully with a tarp from end to end. Stake down the tarp’s grommets with tent stakes or weigh down the edges with bricks. 

Trim the Trees

Instead of cleaning up leaves, avoid leaves in the first place. 

Trim trees in winter or early spring before the buds sprout. Each limb that you remove eliminates leaf growth and the eventual leaf clean up six to eight months later.

Professional tree trimming costs range from $215 to $730 per tree. With a step ladder, pole saw trimmer, pruning saw, and pruning clippers, you can cut low-hanging tree limbs by yourself.

Dispose of the Leaves

Use all available methods of leaf disposal to get the leaves out of your yard.

In the fall, leaves pile up faster than they can be disposed of with municipal collection. The 96-gallon compost bin standard in many communities fills quickly with freshly fallen leaves. Use these tips for maximizing municipal collection:

• Save branches to the side to dispose of after the leaves are gone.
• Shred the leaves.
• Tamp each layer of leaves in the bin with a two-by-four, garden rake, or shovel.
• Call the municipal waste management agency to see if you can add extra paper yard waste bags alongside the collection bin.

Watch the Weather

Set up weather alerts so that you’ll know when heavy precipitation is coming in the fall. It’s critical to clean up leaves before the rain.

Even several mornings of heavy dew will accumulate, weighing down the leaves and eventually turning them slimy and moldy. 

Weather can work to your advantage, too. A strong wind can be enough to knock off the leaves remaining on the tree.

Don’t Collect All the Leaves

It’s fine to leave some leaves scattered in your yard after clean up. Unless you like the spotless look, a few leaves can remain on the grass as long as they are sparse and evenly distributed. They can be mulched with the mower or left as-is. 

Leave no more than five to 10 percent of the leaves behind. Too many leaves left behind will deprive the grass of air, water, and sunlight.