autumn=leaves

[Rine]

Granted, it's "winter" for a lot of you folks, but anyway...

I have a sycamore tree in the front yard, not sure of the height. It's a huge tree, taller than the live oaks across the way. It has HUGE leaves.

And right now...it is dropping those leaves.

We've lived here 12 years and in the last three years, apparently everyone has started to hate our tree. Look, it drops a lot of leaves. We mulch every other day (or daily) but when the wind blows...I'm sorry, it's going to blow into your stupid yard.

The neighbor next to us puts up this ugly fence to keep the leaves out. Works for about 50% of them, but the tree is so big that some of the leaves drop right out of the tree and into his yard. So, he waits until we go to bed and uses a leaf blower (reaaaaal subtle) and blows them all back into our yard.

Today, the old woman that is diagonal from us was out sweeping them from the road in front of our house. She went to chat with the neighbor across from us and said, with lots of gestures to our house, "I don't know WHYYYY I'm doing this when I'm just going to have to rake these STUPID leaves again tomorrow."

Look, the tree is thirty or forty years ago. This whole...leaves falling annually just didn't start all of a sudden. Yeah, I know we are blessed and live where there aren't a lot of trees that shed their leaves, but seriously. It's AUTUMN. Leaves FALL.

I don't get bent out of shape when the neighbors' oaks shed their leaves in the spring and those are far more annoying because they are small and get into everything.

I imagine they all wish that the tree would get taken out by a hurricane, but it's only been topped. In 2005, we lost the top 25 foot when it fell into the house. It nearly killed it. In 1995, it was topped and we lost the live oak when it fell into the garage. It's a beautiful tree in the spring and winter, provides GREAT shade and we pay for it during the fall.

Anyone else have neighbors that hate your tree? What do we do? Just ignore? Literally, everytime I go to the mail box, that woman or the male neighbor next door, gives us the worst glares nowadays.

[HYHYBT]

I don't even understand why people rake leaves in the first place. The grass is dormant in the winter anyway, so being covered in a layer of leaves won't hurt it any. And by spring they've broken down enough that they're not a problem. Free, no-hassle fertilizer, and it looks no worse than the gray grass beneath it would. What's not to like?

[EricKei]

I imagine they all wish that the tree would get taken out by a hurricane, but it's only been topped. In 2005, we lost the top 25 foot when it fell into the house.

Same thing happened to our big ...whatever it is tree (evergreen, drops needle-ish leaves and dingleberries)...during the big K. Top 10 feet or so lopped right off and went into the attic by way of the roof shingles >_< Shame, too, it had provided some MAJOR shade to the big window up front of the house before that. The tree lived, tho, so maybe it'll be nice and big for the next generation or so

When I read the subject, I kinda thought it might be about leaves turning colors...or, as it happens here, the LACK of that. Most trees here go straight from green to dead unless they're evergreens.

[Cat]

I love the sight of fallen leaves, and yes, they are cheap fertilizer....let them fall!!

[Amina516]

I understand their frustration. My neighbors have 4 trees, I have NONE...and b/c 2 of their pine trees lean overmy yard and drop ALLLLL (thats not an exaggeration) their needles and cones into my yard, nothing and I mean NOTHING can grow. Its frustrating, but short of asking them to chop their trees down, i dont know what can be done. I also have a sycamore tree with HUGE leaves that belongs to the neighbors on the other side, that leans into my yard. Ive given up. I dont really have a yard anymore, so I ignore it and guess what? My yard looks like shit!! Short of my husband and I raking up the mess every once in a while, I do absolutely nothing back there. Its not worth it.

Besides, possibly offering to help clean up, i dont know what else you can do...short of chopping the tree down , which im sure is not an option. Theyll have to get over it. Or stay pissy with you..which is more likely.

[Rine]

Yeah, we aren't going to be chopping it down any time soon...besides, it's big enough that we'll probably get fined or something. The thing is, it's still "young" so estimates are it's going to add another thirty or forty feet in height over the years. Imagine the leaves then...

It's like a weed...the weed of the tree world. My good neighbor said that she was thinking about planting one when this one was planted but ten years later, she saw how many leaves it dropped and thought, "Heeell no!"

The only other sycamore in the area was about twenty feet high and they cut theirs down because of too much leaves. Lazy people.

Today it is raining and very windy so, yes, it looks like those other neighbors didn't do a darn thing yesterday when they cleaned up. We cannot mulch because it's all wet so it'll have to wait.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You know, the same thing happens to me from my neighbor's tree. You know what else? I don't care. Leaves fall. The trees are beautiful. I don't want to live in a place with no trees, and the price you pay for living in a place with trees is debris in your yard.

If they don't like it, maybe they should live in the middle of a parking lot.

I rake. My neighbors rake. I have trees, too. I don't sit around and take inventory of what leaf fell off who's tree.

These people need to get over themselves. And if they have a problem with you, they need to sack up and say something instead of sitting around like a bunch of passive aggressive chickenshits and say something instead of giving you the stink eye.

Heck, more than leaves came from my neighbor's place, he had a pile of builder's sand on his front lawn that did not survive a torretial thunderstorm. That sand pile ended up going out of his yard, into my yard, down my paved driveway, into my backyard, under my deck, and out the other side into my kid's play yard/garden.

What a mess. I had what looked like the Mississippi River delta though my backyard garden.

Yes, it was annoying, because it made a huge mess, but it was also pretty humorous. It wasn't really his fault, I mean, it's not the sort of thing anyone might foresee.

[RestaurantDude]

Trees

We've got lots of trees here. It's just a fact of life that leaves fall. We clear them off of the sidewalks when they build up, but, it isn't a big deal. If you don't like trees, you shouldn't live 'round here. Perhaps you should make a similar suggestion to your neighbors?

[Food Lady]

I love the sight of fallen leaves, and yes, they are cheap fertilizer....let them fall!!

If leaves fall in the forest, and no people are around to rake them, does Fall really exist?

[Cat]

If leaves fall in the forest, and no people are around to rake them, does Fall really exist?

I think that question was on my meteorology final one year

[Jester]

If these people really hate leaves so much, they should move to a place that doesn't have them. I would suggest the desert, but I love Arizona, and don't want neighbors like that when I move back there. I would suggest the tropics, but I love the Keys, and don't want neighbors like that down here.

So I would suggest Nevada. Maybe Pahrump, Nevada. Desert, so no major treeage. And almost no neighbors, since no one fucking lives there. Perfect place for them!

[Rine]

Thanks everyone...I feel a little bad today because we've had round about 20 MPH winds so leaves are getting everywhere. We really do try to keep this under control, but we can't control nature.

But I think according to the neighbors, we should be able to contain all of our leaves in our front yard.

See, today I didn't pitch a fit when a tree branch fell out of my neighbor's tree and landed in the road in front of my car. It's nature. There's no need getting bent out of shape about it.