How To Get Rid of Leaves in the Yard

Rake the leaves into piles and put them in leaf bags or garbage bags. This is the standard suburban answer to getting rid of leaves. It does take a lot of work and it may require that the bags sit by the curb for weeks until the next large debris or yard waste pickup comes by. Many communities only have this pickup once a month, and many don't allow yard waste to be placed with the rest of the household's trash. That can mean moldy bags of leaves sitting by the curbs, smelling worse by the day.

Use a leaf blower to either blow them into a leaf pile or blow them into being someone else's problem. A leaf blower can scatter the leaves so that no one area of the yard has a high leaf concentration, making it look like you've gotten rid of the leaves. Some people use a leaf blower to blow their leaves into the street where they will no longer affect the lawn they came from. A leaf blower can be a rake substitute, blowing the leaves into a pile to avoid the hard work of raking. The pile can then be scooped into bags and disposed of.

Put the leaves into a tumbler compost bin or make a compost pile. A tumbler compost bin is useful for speeding up the composting time, and it takes up less space than a compost pile. A pile, however, can fit a larger number of leaves. Once the leaves have composted, they are valuable as fertilizer and as mulch for your garden plants.

Burn the leaves. This isn't allowed in all communities, and you might need a permit in order to have an open burn in your yard. In addition, some areas have burn bans during specific times of the year. If you want to burn the leaves, rake or blow them into one large pile and call the local courthouse before you light the fire. If you aren't allowed to burn them, you can scoop the pile into bags or use it to start a compost pile.