danbyer t1_iy28py4 wrote on November 28, 2022 at 4:38 AM

I’ve got about 3/4 acre of lawn to mow and a loooong driveway+parking to snow blow. I use an older John Deere D130 ride-on mower with a 4’ snowblower attachment in the Winter. It’s pretty damn dreamy.

Oh, and in the fall I blow the leaves onto the lawn and mulch in place. Hauling them away is just taking away nutrients.

YourPlot t1_iy3t4ri wrote on November 28, 2022 at 3:22 PM

An add on here. We have a heavily forested backyard with a lot of oaks. We do not mulch in place otherwise the leaf litter would not decompose in time for spring. And instead of grown ground cover, we would have rotting layer of leaves. We do two passes with the rake to clean off leaves (compost some, bag some), and then we do the last pass in November with the mower to mulch the remaining leaves.

So depending on your yard, you may not be able to do a pure mulch-in-place method.

danbyer t1_iy4kspk wrote on November 28, 2022 at 6:30 PM

In that case, my ideal setup would be a tow-behind Cyclone Rake. My neighbor has one and it looks incredible. I've only got 2 big oaks, so I just give those spots a few extra mulching passes and it breaks them down just fine. I can't justify buying the Cyclone Rake no matter how hard I try :/