Mulch leaves or rake & bag?

[Twotoros]

I have heard this more than once but have never seen it in writing. " Mulching the leaves (fine) is very good for the turf." First time I heard this was from a large turf company's manager. Is it true?

[curlawngreen]

If there are not a lot then they can be mulched, too many, not good. Mulched leaves will draw some nitrogen from soil while decomposing. Leaves do add nitrogen to soil after decomposing. Need to compensate for loss.

[Twotoros]

That makes sense. It gives me answers for customers when I bid clean-ups this fall.I knew mulching wasn't all bad but it couldn't be as great as some have told me. Thanks

[thelawnguy]

Mulch them and save on labor, and get income from lime app and fall and spring fert app.

[awm]

Mulch. Some customers are amazed that you
can make the leaves disappear. Try to
mulch several times if they will let you.

[Runner]

I just read an article in one of the mags that said a healty lawn should be able to take the mulch of up to three inches of fallen leaves. Now, the three inches is BEFORE mulching, mind you. I know some of mine take that and THEN some!

[Eric ELM]

I posted this on the JRco Plow thread, but wanted others to see what mulching with double Gator blades can do. Some may skip over the JRco Plow Thread, but look at this one and I wanted this to be seen by guys that do mulch or want to try it. On the other thread, some say you can't mulch, but at least the posts on this thread believe in mulching leaves. You can see what I'm mulching and how it looks after the first time and then I go over it real fast a second time, which is the bottom picture. It may not be perfect, but I don't think it looks horrible and I've never had any complaints. When they get a bit deeper, I'll get some more pictures. It sure beats picking them up.

http://elms.bizland.com/before.jpg

http://elms.bizland.com/after.jpg

[Premo Services]

LOOKING GOOD Eric!!!!!!!!

Ok, you convinced me,I was ready to go and fork out 1300 big ones for the Ultra Vac. I will try double blades before I buy the Ultra Vac for my lazer. These pics are pretty Impressive!!!

[lawrence stone]

You have to remember that the NW winds will blow some of the bits away and the next soaking rain will drive the rest
into the soil. So the end results will be better that what you see pictured.

Plus you need to keep the bluegrass dethatched, cut to a min of 2 1/2 inches, and fertilized with a lots of quick release N.

The care of turfgrass is a science. But since it is not an exact science your performance will vary.

[TGCummings]

Beautiful photos, Eric.

I mulch everything, and haven't had any problems with mulching up large amounts of leaves. On smaller properties, I might blow the 'bits' away after mowing. On larger ones, I'll make a second pass and call it good.

Like Eric, I've never had a complaint about leaves doing it this way.

-TGC

[eggy]

The post above says a lot, We mulch them until the final clean up then we blow out all beds and mulch them, then we use backpack blowers and blow mulched leaves into piles, the piles are reduced a extreme amount......we only do that on the final clean up.

[dylan]

This is my second year mulching leaves. I use a backpack to blow the leaves out of beds and then hit them a few times with the mower. Once customers see that you can make 5" of maple and oak leaves disappear without a trace and do it without a rake, they are amazed. I will never rake again.
On some properties with big ditches that collect a lot of blowing leaves (2-3 feet tall piles the lenght of the ditch) I used a mulching push mower and keep eating away at the pile turnig it to 2" of dust. The next spring there is not a trace of the leaves.

I have an article here from the Grounds Maintenance Magazine written by Zac Reicher and Glenn Hardebeck from Purdue University. (aug issue) They studied the effects of mulching leaves into the turf. They had different plots of grass and applied 6-8" of mulched leaves to all of them. Some plots were supplied supplemental nitrogen in varing amounts and some got none. The results were:
The grass with no nitrogen supplement did not do so well.
The grass that got any amount of nitrogen did well.
They feel that as the leaves breakdown there will be some depletion of nitrogen but it would not be a problem because most lawns are fertilized in the fall anyway.
There was no buildup of leaf mat in the soil.
There was an increase in microbial activity. This prevented build up of leaf mat.
Increased soil microbial activity indicates improved soil quality.
Increased water filtration rates.
Improved soil properties.
No effect on nutrient availability or pH in the soil.
(NOTE: If low pH leaves were mulched in to a soil with a low buffering capacity (oak into sandy) the pH will go down)
(could be corrected by lime)
A heavily shaded lawn, already thinned from shade may not be able to withstand the extra abuse of leaf mulching.
You must match the leaf disposal method to the site.


In conclusion, mulching leaves can save tremendous amounts of time and labour. It is cheaper than using expensive vacumns, disposal fees, labour and special trucks/ trailers for hauling.
It can be an effective bidding tool, because an overall maintenance program that includes fall leaf disposal could be performed for less money if you employ leaf mulching.
You could protray yourself as an "eco-friendly" operator because you are not filling up landfills.

Hope this helps someone.
Dylan

[Toroguy]

I agree with Dylans final point that if you reduce your time you reduce the cost to the customer. A happy customer is repeat customer.

The fall season here in central MN has been a bear. No rain for a month now, wildfires starting up. Were in a Extreme Fire Danger area. And not to mention a dust storm every time I mulch. I need to borrow a Firefighters breathing apparatus to keep the dust from killing me.

[Getmow]

Maple leaves are a breeze to mulch. I use the double blades on my DC's or a blade and "chain" combo. The chain works better with dry leaves than the doubles it seems.
You guys in the mid west seem to have it better than I do here in the mid east. There is a point in the season that we switch over to blowers and a truck mounted vac.

[LJ lawn]

i've been mulching as much as possible if i can get away with it. i normally make a few passes in a circular pattern with my toro -z ,then suck up what's left with the walker.here in jersey we have some townships who have curbside leaf collection,so i just pick em up with the walker and dump em at the curb.i haven't used the dump insert in my truck yet!

[awm]

THATS why im here. Very infomative
post.

[John DiMartino]

Eric,your machine does an excellent job-I dont know how you get no windrow under the disharge chute-i get a thick line of leaves there no matter what I do-I am also mowing much more leaves than you -that might have something to do with it.Either way,your look excellent-no reason to bag when theu grind up that good.

[Eric ELM]

John, the reason you don't see a windrow is that I leave the OCDC open. If I do close it in heavier leaves than what you see, I just partially close it so some still come out, which lets air in so the deck doesn't blow out leaves in front of the deck.

[dylan]

Eric
What height are you cutting at when you are mulching in those pictures?

It seems to me that the leaves would disappear easier into tall grass than the traditional fall "cut it short for winter" so:

I went experimenting today and found it easier to mulch at 3" than at 2". I had less blow out, the leaves got sucked in easier and disappeared quicker.

Make sure everyone removes leaves from around their mufflers. I had some leaves glowing tonight. They get trapped between the muffler and the engine on the 14 hp kaw.

AWM - Thanks, glad to be of help

[Edited by dylan on 10-22-2000 at 02:19 AM]

[Eric ELM]

I was cutting at 3" in those pictures.

[LJ lawn]

i forgot about this one-i helped a guy do a leaf cleanup last year and the only thing he had was an ancient bunton 36" walk behind,i wanted to see if it would mulch down the piles he was making.as i made a few passes i smelled smoke then flames,i almost burned down this ladys yard with his piece of crap machine. what had happened is the blades jammed,belt got hot and cought the leaves on fire.we got it out quickly but,was quite a stressful event.it brought back memories when i parked my moms car next to a leaf pile and cought it on fire.(major stress).

[Doug406]

Not to knock mulching, but those pictures are not as nice as a blower, truckloader, and trac vac would have created. You have got to admit that!
And if it is under contract, if they are expecting fall leaf cleanups, and you are providing fall leaf mulch ups, I bet i would not hire you again next year, just because of the false impression you gave the customer.
Now if mulch is fine with the customer, great. But why would you want to cut down your work time to provide a mediocure (spelled wrong do you think) service while I (your competition) am going to blow, truck load, and trac vac your lawn for a 100% quality job. And we charge by the man hour.
Do not get me wrong, we do some mulching, but not for the high profile, high quality customers, only for the quick cheap ones that want to save a buck.

[MOW ED]

I don't even make it an issue as this is really the time when the Walker is priceless. I vacuum everything up off the lawn and it looks great when I am done. It doesn't matter if it is a residence or a commercial property , they all get vacummed and picked up.

I am lucky because the city picks up the debris at curbside starting the first week in Oct. thru sometime in November (depending on the weather). The customers that require me to remove the leaves have no problem transferring their green into my account;)

[John DiMartino]

I have been bagging too,I only do large propertys-so there is always an established dump pile there already from the years of branches and sticks that have fallen,i use that with the owners permission,then if they want ill come back and clean up the dump with the tractor/loader for a fee.If they wanted it curbside-i just drop a garbage bag in the 44 gallon can and do it that way.I will be mowing at 2 1/2 this week,so it would be hard to hide the leaves anyway in the lower grass.I love to drive away with the lawn perfect-not one leave left-its gotten me a lot of cleanup work here already.

[awm]

I mulch w murray hydrostat.Absolutely no
visible residue when im done.One problem
with mulching is hardwood leaves have
low ph 3.2 etc.this must be compensated
for.

[jaclawn]

I have one account that filled up a 7 yard dump body over the course of the season. I mulched them weekly till this week. I used double passes when mulching. I cut there yesterday, First pass with mulcher, second pass with bagger. Result= Total volume of leaves removed in 2000. Half yard. 95% of the leaves are down, the next cut should be able to mulch the rest just fine.

[luckylawnboy]

Well you can vaccum leaves all you want. But let me tell you now that mulching does help the turf for the fallowing year. I am a turf science major here at Purdue U. and done some reserching from past articles. The only time that I have found mulching to not be okay is when you have 80 year old tree that has lost all of its leaves, and you only have about 1000sq. ft. to try to mulch them into that small of an area.. Just make sure that the leaves are small enough so that they dont act like a blanket and smother the grass,and your be ok. Well you have to use a little common sence. (sp)

I think dylan summed it up pretty nicley. And trust me Zac Reicher is one of my professors here at Purdue, great guy, and really knows his turf.

[cutntrim]

It's interesting to hear how other guys handle leaves. Up here in Southern Ontario, the two municipalities we work in both offer curbside pickup. Virtually ALL of the companies here bag the leaves and either remove them entirely, or leave them curbside. The vast majority simply put their baggers on and dump load after load at the curbside. We do it a little different than most. We blow the leaves off the lawn and into nearby garden beds, or to the curb. Then we cut the lawn w/o bagging. We've got double blades on our WB's and Atomics on our Z-Master. Our lawns look very similar to the way Erics do. We offer a FULL fall cleanup for those who want it, at the end of the season. Then we clean up EVERY SINGLE LEAF from the customer's property and pile them curbside for pickup. With the amount of leaves that many of our properties have on them, we'd have to make several passes (even with double blades) to mulch them up to our satisfaction. Therefor, we believe it to be faster to use blowers and then only do one pass with the mowers. Also we reduce or eliminate, string trimming on most accounts during October when we have to spend time blowing. This past week we did full trimming everywhere because it was our last scheduled week of cutting.

Whew...'nuff said.

[powerreel]

You smokers better be extra careful with those butts if you are collecting leaves, ie. Flaming Truck Jams Local Freeway News At 5:00!

[Bluegrass Lawn Service]

I clean the lawns both way depending on size. If a lot of trees with small lawn, I mulch first time or two. Then I start picking up leaves. Down town lawns any way I can. I've used tarps and back pack blower. This works well in small tight areas. However out on the lawns when the mulch is getting to be too much, I pick up. Too make it quicker, one operator mulches the other picks up the mulch with trac vac. No leaves nothing but clean green lawns. No mater what I do with mulching to get even close I would need to go over at least two times. Dixie Choppers is all I use.

Has anyone tried the new vac for the Dixie Choppers? The one that dumps and runs off the spindle. Also the shute is open on the bottom. though I might try one next year on one of my other dixies

[MJB]

MOW MONEY,
If you have a Lazer just put on your mulch kit and the Exmark mulching blades and you can do just as good a job as side discharging with doubles. I prefer the mulching kit because I can use it anywhere without blowing leaves into beds etc.
In fact I just did a commercial job with 2000 sq ft by 1 ft deep. I went over it 3 times and bull dozed the extra leaves to the open areas as I chopped em up. I got done and the maintenance man asked where I hauled them off to so fast. He couldn't beleive how good my Lazer mulches.

[Nick]

I am taken this to the top. These pictures were Erics best examples of leaf mulching. Why can I not view them? He has another leaf mulching picture on this site but this was the one in a heavy wooded area. I hope we can get these pictures back.

[kppurn]

With the recent debate on leaf mulching, I went looking for this thread yesterday. I was dissapointed to find that the pictures wouldn't show.
This is my first season running my own business. I previously worked for another company that did leaf removal. We ran two trucks, one with the equipment and another hauling the leaves. I have been thinking about getting the micro mulch system for my lazer to extend my season. If it works well, I want to incorporate weekly leaf mulching next season for all of my customers (with an upcharge for extra time spent).
With the recent debate, I don't know if I should just buy the ultra vac next season. My main concern is that I can't haul them off. I guess I could just bag them and leave them at the curb.
I have some researching to do and decisions to make.