"cormaic" wrote
"Charlieb"
enriched all our
lives with these worthy thoughts:

Anyway my question to all of you who have walked this path before
is - Dead
leaves and gravel, a bad mix? I can imagine as they slowly
decompose in the
gravel the mess it could make, and I will be wishing I got that
blower. On
the other hand will they decompose and miraculously be consumed by
the land
leaving a nice gravel patch once again in the Spring/summer.

Let the wind blow them into convenient heaps in the usual
nooks and crannies, then let the rain dampen them down, so that you
can grab them fairly easily and cart them off to the compost heap or
leaf litter bin. You'll never round up all the loose leaves, but by
removing the naturally-formed heaps, you'll reduce the amount of
crud
that will develop over the winter to contaminate the gravel.
In most cases, come next April, you'll hardly know there had
been dead leaves all over the place! :~)
cormaic

I do the same as Cormaic and then rake the gravel over a bit so that
the leaves go underneath and therefore decompose quicker.

Jenny