It seemed to happen over night! First the leaves began to change and then they started to drift off the trees. After some rainy weather over the past few days and a windy night, the leaves dropped like an avalanche.
The catalpa and sycamore leaves are huge and have fallen at a significant rate. No doubt the weight of the wet leaves caused them to drop even faster. The maples are dropping at a different pace. The Norway maples will take longer, as they have not even changed from green to yellow. While the Japanese maples are rapidly becoming bare.
I have acres of leaves to rake. What a pleasure it is to go outside, even if it is chilly, and rake leaves. I will put many of them in the woodland garden. I intend to put a thick layer where I want my paths to go. My thought is this will help suppress the weeds and help to establish the paths.
The prior owners left a big blue tarp. I will rake the leaves into the tarp and drag it across the lawn to the garden. Last year, the company that cut my lawn cleaned up the leaves. It was expensive. Rather than pay thousands of dollars for them to clean up it will be more fun to do it myself.
I will miss the riot of colors – red, orange, yellow, and many shades of green. Rather than lament the change of the seasons, the cooler weather and time inside will give me more time to plan for Spring!