You can take a girl off the ranch but the ranch never leaves the girl. For years I have tried to set a good example for my neighbors, but not a single one has ever tried my windrow, shred, and bag method. I use my mower with the bag blocked to shred and then pull the block and suck up the finely shredded leaves. A powerful blower and a power drive lawn mower do the trick. When I use to garden, the shredded leaves made the best compost. I was once confused about how the name Sycamore came to be, but after years of battling their leaves and getting more sick of it as the years passed, my understanding became crystal clear.
When I was a kid, we used to just burn them. Of course, you did it on a calm day and put fire breaks in between sections.
This post makes me think of my grandmother. She hated the one big sycamore tree in her yard. It shed bark all season long, as well as leaves in the fall. The tree is still alive last time I checked. Huge now.
These comments made me go read about the sycamore tree. There is no love, unless they are on someone else's property. Regarding raking leaves...my 1/3 acre suburban lot was surrounded by huge trees. The property was developed in the 1940s so the trees were well-established. I used to rake them to the curb, where the town employees would drive by and vacuum them up into the truck. My 51 acre lot here has 7 acres of "lawn" with only one sizeable tree in the middle (I have no idea what species it is.) Its leaves fall, and I guess they blow away.
Raleigh, NC, had those vacuum trucks when I lived there in the 70s. Those were so nice. I rented, but volunteered to rake leaves for one landlady a couple of years. Most streets here in Georgia allow too much street parking for that to ever work. As a consequence they have to send trucks around every fall to pump out all the clogged street drains. Bagged leaves a few years when the yard here had lots of trees. So much work. Refused to ever do it again.
I have a smallish yard and am surrounded by woods, so there are plenty of leaves around. But I never rake them or do anything else with them. By spring they are mostly rotted, and after I mow the yard the first time you can't see any evidence of them. Unless someone enjoys doing it for the exercise or some other reason, I don't see the point in it.
When I lived in the country I left the leaves. My yard is located so a lot of the leaves from the neighborhood fall in here and stay. I think I live in a vortex. There are way too many leaves to leave and mulch in the lawn. The main trees around here are elm and sycamore and both are nuisance trees, in my opinion. Nothing I can do but move which I plan to do someday. If I left the leaves they would get so deep and matted by spring that they would kill the lawn. Sycamore leaves around here if left, grow some kind of white fungi.
When I was a kid, we used to rake leaves into a big pile, play in the pile for a while and then burn the pile. In adulthood, I mowed/mulched the leaves into tiny bits that went on the garden. In old age, I don't give them a second thought, letting others make a little money dealing with them, being thankful that I can do that.
The problem is around here you can't find any yard service to do leaves that don't have a $50 minimum fee. They charge another $50 for cleaning gutters. I have about 10 big leaf removal sessions every fall. That would be $1000 each fall for yard and gutter leaf removal. The days of kids wanting to earn a few bucks for doing physical labor are gone.
I have never bagged leaves but then I've never had trees that dropped leaves. In my prior location I had no trees. My wife traded an antique dining room dish cabinet with someone to plant six very small Japanese Pine trees. Thy were almost knee high. Those trees were the only trees we've ever had. I didn't think any of them would live but only one died, killed by a buried grass killing bar. The other five grew to be beautiful trees. Those trees did not drop leaves. In my present location, we had one ugly tree in the center of our front yard. It is the desinated state tree of Oklahoma. I can't remember the name but it is something like rosebud, I think. My wife loves trees; she loved this ugly thing. Then one year the city offered a tree to anyone who wanted a tree to plant. They gave us one; it was a smallish thing, maybe six feet high and our son planted it for her. The neighbor across the street also somehow got two. He planted one then decided he didn't want the other one. He gave it to my wife. My son planted it. So we'd have three trees in the front yard. All three drop their leaves. Our neighbor has three or four trees that hang out over our yard. They drop leaves. The front yard has not been much of a problem. The lawn guy chomps them up or the wind finally blows some away. Two years I have paid my lawn guy to rake up and hawl away those in the back yard. He has charged me a hundred dollars each season he does this. It will be later on this year before I know if I have a problem. I like trees but I am not the negotiater my wife is. Were it not for her we not doubt would be treeless. One of the trees in the front yard I think is a popular. The other, the gift from the neighbor across the street, is a beautiful oak. So far this year we have not had a leaf problem, We had a light freeze the other night. I'm going to wait another week or two and have my lawn mowed again. Ours was not a killing frost or freeze and it only lasted a few hours. At any rate I don't think I will have a leaf problem this year in the back yard from my neighbor's trees, but if we do, I'll be out another handfull of cash unless my wife decides to trade me for a little yard work.