KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When it comes to raking leaves, the opinions are as varied as the colors on trees.
Allen Rostron is a traditionalist. The law professor living in Kansas City, Missouri’s Crestwood neighborhood uses a rake to collect leaves, then he bags them. The city collects the bags from his curb.
“I kind of like doing it," Rostron said. "I think fall is the best season, and this is part of the reason."
Starr Terrell uses a lawnmower with a bag attached to collect leaves from her Brookside lawn and driveway.
“I am mowing my driveway right now, yeah, and you caught me in the act,” Terrell admitted Sunday.
Down the block, Andrea Moon uses a leaf blower to move the leaves into a giant pile on her driveway. Then, she takes the mower over the pile, grinding leaves into smaller pieces before using a snow shovel to put the pieces in bags for the city to collect.
“We mulch it, chomp, chomp, chomp, around, and around and around,” Moon said. “When you think you’re done, go around a couple more times. Then it’s almost powder.”
While all those approaches get the job done, experts from Kansas State University’s extension office and Johnson County, Kansas, recommend a different method. The agency said you should mow the leaves where they land, essentially turning them into mulch for your yard.
In a YouTube video, Johnson County’s horticultural agent, Dennis Patton, said you should mow the lawn when there’s roughly an inch of leaves covering the yard. It’s more about mowing the leaves than the grass. It’ll require multiple mowings to mulch all the leaves that fall from trees. Patton recommends fertilizing lawns in November. He also warned a deep pile of leaves can suffocate the grass.
“As long as we continue to mow frequently enough, chopping those leaves fine enough they filter back to the soil surface, we can save ourselves a lot of work,” Patton said in the video.
Expect to mow or rake later in the fall this year than year’s past. KSHB 41 Meteorologist Cassie Wilson says dry, mild and calm conditions this fall have kept leaves on trees longer than year’s past.
