On Nov 3, 9:16*pm, Lawn Guy wrote:
wrote:
Because in most rural places with folks with lots of
trees and experience, bagging doesn't exist. *

And it doesn't apply.

I'm talking about urban properties - not rural.


No, it does apply, because in an urban area, with a lot with few
trees, it's very easy and effective to just use a mulching mower and
grind up the modest amount of leaves on the lawn. I do it. Others
here do it. And contrary to your nonsense, it's not because we're
lazy. It's because it's less work, returns organic matter to the
soil, and is environmentally sound. But go ahead and keep shoving
your leaves in bags if you want. We really don't care. Just don't
go around calling those of us who choose not to lazy or claim that
doing so is incompatible with a healthy lawn.



Here anyone who wants to have their leaves taken away, simply
blows or rakes them into the street. * The township comes by
every couple of weeks from Nov thru Dec and vacuums them up.

But even in that case, the leaves are removed. *Doesn't matter if it's
by blowing and then vacuuming or by raking and bagging.

Well, I would say yes it does. Because for those unfortunate enough
to live somewhere that makes you stuff them in bags, it's an even
bigger pain in the ass, plus a waste of time, money, and resources.




If you did a little research, you'd find that there is widespread
agreement that mulching the clippings and leaving them is
beneficial to the lawn. * The clippings decay and provide nutrients.

The nutient value of grass is so poor that nobody uses grass to make
compost.

You want a healthy lawn, you use fertilizer. *The cut grass from last
season will not nourish your lawn anywhere near what a bag of fertilizer
will do. *You want to promote thatch and give a home to bugs, then leave
your clippings on the lawn.


So says you. No let's see what some qualified and knowledgeable
folks have to say.

From Agri Extension of the Univ of Missouri:

Q What is the "Don't Bag It" lawn care plan?


A This MU Extension educational program involves recycling grass
clippings. Instead of collecting clippings, the "Don't Bag It" plan
encourages people to return them to the lawn.


Q What benefits do grass clippings provide if returned to the lawn?


A Grass clippings returned to the lawn provide up to 25 percent of
your lawn's total fertilizer needs. Clippings contain about 4 percent
nitrogen, 2 percent potassium and 1 percent phosphorus. While
decomposing, they also serve indirectly as a food source for the
bacteria in the soil, which are doing many beneficial things (such as
decomposing thatch) for a healthy turf environment.


From Univ of Virginia, AG Ext:

Valuable Nutrients Lost!
The most unappreciated problem with off-site clipping disposal is that
potentially valuable commodities, plant organic matter and the
nutrients derived from it, are being discarded as a waste material!
When clippings are continually removed from a lawn, natural nutrient
cycling is partially reduced.

Rethinking Clipping Removal
The most prevalent reasons that people give for removing clippings may
reflect misconceptions and habit. Such reasons include:


Bagging may be the accepted practice in the neighborhood.
Clippings can become unsightly when they lay on top of the turf
canopy.
Turf can be smothered due to the inconsistent clipping dispersal of
side discharge rotary mowers.
Some believe clippings enhance turf disease.
Concern over clippings being tracked into a home or swimming pool.
The notion that clippings will accumulate and form a detrimental
thatch layer.



Grasscycling and Thatch Buildup
The idea that grass clippings form a major part of thatch has been
refuted in the literature. Thatch forms when turf roots, stems
(crowns, rhizomes, and stolons), and leaves are sloughed faster than
they can decompose. The negative aspects of thatch layers in excess of
1/2 inch a 1) increased potential for cold, heat or drought-related
injury, 2) more problems with insect pests and fungal diseases, and 3)
additional irrigation required by the turf.


From Ohio Sate Univ:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html

"Don't Bag It-The Lawn Maintenance Plan
The "Don't Bag It" lawn care plan can save the homeowner time, energy,
fertilizers, pesticides, and money, and can reduce the amount of waste
going to our landfills. The principle is simple: return clippings to
your lawn. By leaving your clippings on the lawn and allowing them to
work their way back into soil, you will improve soil health and reduce
pesticide and fertilizer use.

In fact, grass clippings contain valuable nutrients that can generate
up to 25 percent of your lawn's total fertilizer needs. A hundred
pounds of grass clippings can generate and recycle as much as three to
four pounds of nitrogen, one-half to one pound of phosphorus, and two
to three pounds of potassium back to the lawn. These are the three
most important nutrients needed by lawns, and are commonly supplied in
lawn fertilizers. Also, grass clippings do not contribute to thatch
(an organic debris layer between the soil and live grass) since grass
clippings are 75-85 percent water and decompose readily.

Why, then, do many homeowners bag grass clippings? Basically, it is a
personal preference and habit most homeowners have acquired. Proper
lawn care practices will usually eliminate surface clipping debris and
ensure a successful "Don't Bag It" program.

In summary, by composting at home, you can help protect the
environment, save money, and improve your soil at the same time. "




Beneficial to the companies harvesting trees to make those bags,

I highly doubt that paper leaf bags are made from anything other than
recycled paper and cardboard. *Not freshly-cut trees. *Maybe tree bark.

... I'd say there isn't anything natural or good for the environment
in the whole process.

I don't use paper bags for leaves because you can't pack them without
tearing them. *That's why I use plastic garbage bags.

Even worse, using plastics made of oil to stuff full of leaves.
Again, if it makes you happy, go ahead. But don't come around here
giving advice based on ignorance and junk science, then calling others
who use easier methods that make excellent sense, lazy.




Hmmm, what about on all the streets and roads in a municipality
where there are just trees and no homes? * Like in the country?

You don't have curbs and gutters and storm sewers on country roads. *You
have paved or soft-shoulders where leaves don't accumulate on the
roads. *So it's a non-issue in the country.

In conclusion, I'd like to see some credible reference that agrees
with your premise that mulching lawn grass clippings or mulching a
reasonable amount of leaves in-situ with a mower, is incompatible
with a healthy lawn.

If you already have a thatch buildup (1/2 inch or more) you do NOT want
to leave your cut grass on the lawn. *If your grass has certain diseases
(snow mold, powdery mildew, etc) you DO NOT want to leave your cut grass
on the lawn.

Another one of your misinformed opinions is not a credible source.
Normal grass clippings do not create a thatch problem. Here again
from the Univ of Missouri:

Q Do clippings returned to the lawn contribute to thatch problems?


A Thatch is a layer of undecomposed or partially decomposed grass
roots, stems, crowns, runners and lower shoots that accumulate between
the soil surface and actively growing turf. Grass clippings contain 80
to 85 percent water and decompose much more quickly than other grass
plant parts. Research at MU and other universitites indicates that
clippings do not contribute to thatch buildup on any cool- or warm-
season grasses, including zoysiagrass





If you want a THICK lawn that you don't need to cut every 5 days, then
bag your grass.

More nonsense. I have a dense tall fescue/blue grass turf and cut it
once a week. Once again, I'd like to see a credible reference that
using a mulching mower is incompatible with a thick, healthy lawn.



*The alternative being promoted to weed killer is to
regularly overseed your lawn, resulting in a thicker lawn.

More wasted time and money. You overseed a lawn IF it needs it
because the grass has thinned out for some reason.


*Again,
leaving the cut grass on the lawn only works if your lawn is relatively
sparse (vs thick) and requires more frequent cutting.

Nonsense as demonstrated by my years of actual experience maintaining
my own lawn. I mulch, cut it once a week, and it's DENSE, as least
as dense as you.



*The theoretical
BEST that grass cuttings can do when left on the lawn is to provide only
25% of the nutrients required. *Water content claims of cut grass
varries wildly from 75% to 90%.

Well, Duh? First you claim that grass clippings are worthless. Now
it's that they can provide 25% of the nutrients required and are 90%
water. Hmmm, let's think about this. What's better? Wasting
time bagging, emptying bags, dealing with the clippings, and buying
extra fertilizer? Or just leaving the mulched clippings so they
provide 25% of the fertilizer? And which wastes less resources and
is better for the environment?



Bagging your grass has been villified in recent years because
municipalities want to desperately keep cut grass out of landfills
because many landfills are reaching capacity. *That's why you hear so
much about the benefits of not bagging your grass. *They're all
imaginary benefits. *Terms like "Grasscycling" are being invented as
part of this propaganda.

So far, all the propaganda, without any credible references, is coming
from you.



If you want a good lawn, you bag your grass, and you deal with the
clippings by doing something other than putting them in your local
municiple landfill. *

I've left clippings for 13 years and have the nicest lawn in the
neighborhood.



Many municipalities have yard waste drop-off depots where home owners
can bring various tree and brush cuttings for disposal for no charge.
The depots will grind them up and turn them into a compost or mulch, and
sell it back to the public. *What you will find is that they won't
accept cut grass or use cut grass in the mulch, or will charge $1 a bag
and make you dump the grass into it's own dumpster. *But why? *Why not
take the grass for free? *Why keep the grass segregated into it's own
pile? *If cut grass is so beneficial and high in nutrients, why
discourage citizens from bringing it to the depots? *Why doesn't this
grass get incorporated into the mulch along with tree branches and other
yard waste materials? *

Whether it's the ideal material for a great general purpose mulch for
a municipality presented with abundant other options, isn't the
issue. There are some negative qualities specific to clippings that
have nothing to do with it's nutrient value that make it less
desirable to use for compost. And that is that lawn clippings are
more likely to contain herbicides, pesticides, etc, that alternatives,
like leaves. The issue is whether it's a sound practice to leave
clippings on a lawn. And the overwhelming consensus from
authorities, is YES.




Why? *Because cut grass is shit and has little to no nutrient value and
is high in carbon. *If it's not good enough for municiple compost piles
it's not good enough for your lawn.

Now we've gone from clippings can provide 25% of a lawns fertilizer
requirements, back to it has little to no nutrient value. Do you
even read what you post?

I was gonna let it go, but just to show that you don't have a clue,
let's look at your statement that clippings are high in carbon.
That's easily refuted. From Ohio State Univ here's a list of some
compost materials and there carbon content:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html

Table 1. Carbon:Nitrogen Ratio

Food wastes 15:1
Sawdust, wood, paper 400:1
Straw 80:1
Grass clippings 15:1
Leaves 50:1
Fruit wastes 35:1
Rotted manures 20:1
Cornstalks 60:1
Alfalfa hay 12:1

At 15, clippings are clearly near the bottom of the list. Highest on
the list though at a whopping 400, are paper bags, which most people
use to bag leaves.






Quite the contrary, I've seen plenty of authorities
that say returning either grass clippings or other
organic matter in reasonable amounts is beneficial
to the lawn.

It's all propaganda.

They simply don't want to see the grass occupy valuble space in rapidly
shrinking municiple landfills.

Sure, reducing the need to haul clippings and the space they take is a
benefit. But how does that make all the other benefits of clippings
cited by an overwhelming number of credible authorities into
propaganda?



Also, if you have something that supports your claim that
leaf removal is necessary to protect the health of trees
in the yard, I'd like to see that too.

-----------------http://imfc.cfl.scf.rncan.gc.ca/maladie-disease-eng.asp?geID=29

Maple leaf spot

The fungus creates small brown spots on the leaves and, in severe
infections, when most of the foliage is affected, the leaves may be shed
prematurely. Growing leaves are infected in the spring and initially
develop yellowish-green spots. The leaves eventually die and turn a
brownish colour. Black fruiting bodies of the fungus develop in the
infected spots around the end of autumn. The spores produced by these
fruiting bodies over winter in the leaf litter and cause new infections
the following spring.

As with many foliar fungal diseases, cool, wet spring weather greatly
favours the spread of the disease. To protect ornamental trees, the
leaves of affected trees should be carefully collected and destroyed by
burning or composting.
-------------------

That is just one example of a tree disease that is promoted and
propagated year-after-year by not raking, bagging or otherwise removing
leaf litter in the fall.

It doesn't say what you claim, which is that in general leaf removal
is necessary for healthy trees and that if you in situ mulch them it
will cause problems. It says if you have this particular disease,
then you should remove the leaves. It's like the Dr. telling you if
you have a sprained ankle, to keep it immobile. Do you think that
translates into being immobile is a good and necessary practice in
general?





See also

http://georgegosselin.com/nstsl/program_description.htm

------------------
... plant disease pathogens form three groups: *fungi, bacteria, and
viruses. *Of the three the majority are fungi. *These pathogens exist
virtually everywhere, but those causing plant diseases are found
primarily in the soil and plant debris such as mulch and leaf litter.
You can help to reduce diseases in you landscape by simply removing old
mulch. leaf litter, etc at the end of the season (mid November -
December) and leaving the soil naked over the winter months.
------------------

Cool, so now we're supposed to remove mulch over the winter? Now
that's pretty laughable. You do that too? I don't know anyone who
has ever done that and by observation, I've never seen it done. All
the landscape beds around here are mulched year round. And also the
mulch helps protect plants over any extreme cold temps.

And I'd point out that this is just some random guy's opinion, with
an amateur website. Why would you think some random hack has any
qualifications to give advice?