I work in quite a few affluent communities around St. Louis. One thing that the residents of these communities seem to have in common is that nobody does their own yard work unless it's their thing.

They have someone to come in and cut their grass in the summer, rake their leaves in the fall and mulch their flower beds in the spring. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

We have a kid come by and mow our yard weekly. We pay him more than he asks and he does a pretty good job.

I figure we paid between him a little more than $500 over the course of the summer.

In St. Louis, I know some are paying thousands yearly - some even tens of thousands.

What I find odd is that they pay people to dispose of their of their leaves in the fall and then pay them in the spring to mulch their beds.

Why not do both at the same time?

Today I raked our leaves. (I didn't do a great job. I just got the bulk raked up.) We have a maple tree of some sort.

I made a few piles like this. 👇

Then I took my leaf blower / yard vac and ground up the leaves.

Then I poured the leaves on the two flower beds in the front of the house.

By the time spring gets here, this pile will have been rained and snowed upon several times and will be compressed and slightly rotten. It will keep the weeds down and feed the junipers growing there.

If we lived out in the country, I'd be pouring this out in my chicken run to give them something to scratch through.

If I had a black walnut tree, I would not put the mulch in my beds as a lot of things don't like the compounds in the leaves. Oaks may be a poor choice too since they are loaded with tannins.

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