# How to Get Rid of Live Oak Leaves?



## Lawn Ranger

My yard covers several acres. I have a lot of live oak trees. These are the most worthless trees on earth. They produce nothing of value, and they poop leaves all over the lawn.

I am having real problems getting rid of the leaves.

I bought a 50" lawn sweeper. Live oak leaves don't cooperate with it all that well. They suck the ground like leeches, so you have to make a number of passes to get an acceptable result. In any case, I have been filling and filling it and dumping the leaves on my burn pile. I would guess the machine holds 75 pounds of leaves, and I can fill it in 5 minutes. In one short session, the burn pile receives 8-10 mounds of leaves. It's a lot.

The leaves burn incredibly slowly, and they are impossible to put out. On Thursday, I burned leaves. On Saturday, I put more leaves on the pile, intending to light them on Sunday. They started burning. Under the pile, something was still going on, after two days.

I tried to put them out on Saturday night. I have a powerful hose, and I hosed and stirred the pile for an hour and a half. I must have pumped 200 gallons of water onto it. They still started up again after I left. This is Monday, and they were still burning last night. They are probably burning now.

What do people do to get rid of live oak leaves? I can't compost them. I would have a pile the size of a bounce house, and it would be a fire hazard. Mulching doesn't work.

I'm planning to kill a bunch of the trees, but I will still have way too many leaves. Should I just find someone with a vacuum machine and pay him $500 to help me out?


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## jessehurlburt

What issues do you have mulching them? Is it due to the leaves sticking to the ground?


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## Lawn Ranger

Some go up into the blades, but most just sit there.


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## Movingshrub

@Lawn Ranger What lawn mower are you using? I got an two pecans, a maple, and two oak trees. My Honda mower handles those leaves without any issue.


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## Lawn Ranger

I have a John Deere 430 with a Tricycler kit. These are not ordinary oak leaves. They are from live oaks. Thick and heavy.


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## Colonel K0rn

This might sound crazy, but why not chop them up with a shredder before you burn them? Makes smaller bits to burn? Just throwing it out there.


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## Lawn Ranger

Well, imagine yourself picking up 2 or 3 tons of leaves and feeding them into a shredder.


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## ABC123

They make zero turn blowers. But with that mindset I'd imagine you could pull or mount a billy goat blower to something to eliminate all the walking. They also make leaf rakes for the front of zero turns.


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## Lawn Ranger

I have a remarkable situation here.

Blowers barely move live oak leaves. They blow maple leaves just fine, but live oak leaves grip the ground even harder when the wind blows. I have two blowers, and they're useless. Also, I have nowhere to blow tons of leaves. They have to go somewhere.

As for rakes, my yard has Spanish moss in it. I mean IN the lawn and on the ground under trees. I bought an acreage rake, and the moss choked it. It also stalls my lawn sweeper. I have to stop it periodically and hack at the moss around the axle with a knife.

The sweeper is adequate, but how do I get rid of the leaves? Burning them is a nightmare, and I can't have a multi-ton pile of dead leaves on my property. First time lightning strikes, I'll have a fire that lasts a month!

Maybe I'll just have to burn once a week and let them take as long as they have to. I really don't want the forestry people fining me because they spotted a fire going at 4 a.m.


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## Rackhouse Mayor

So I'm in the same boat here. My biggest issue is getting them off of the ground. If any moisture hits the leaf it sucks to the ground. I'm thinking about removing the trees although that requires a permit. Midnight tree removal, anyone? Also, have you considered a burn barrel? It would take more time for you to burn the leaves, but at least you could throw a lid on the barrel when you wanted to put the fire out.


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## gene_stl

I think you should take that Tricycler kit off and attach a tow behind lawn vac with at least a five or six hp motor. Put high lift blades on your mower deck.
At my old place I had six , count em six sweet gums. They dropped those GD balls all the time. My orange monster (20 hp 52 inch three blade deck) and a five horsepower tow behind would suck up almost everyone of them and grind them into powder. My kids and I started calling it "the crystalline entity" from a Star Trek nexgen episode that had a space monster that stripped the surfaces of planets down to subsoil.
Between the mower blades and the flails in the vac it will grind up anything. Not all vacs have flails. (you want a "chipper shredder vac)
https://www.leafblowersdirect.com/Agri-Fab-45-0540/p77062.html
This processing reduces the volume of leaves by ten or twenty to one. You will be able to compost them very easily.
Or bag em right out of the vac.
You can also get standalone lawn vacs and they work fairly well too , but if you say your blowers are useless the above is probably your best solution. Horsepower is king.
https://www.bestproducts.com/lifestyle/g1895/lawn-leaf-vacuums/?slide=1


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## 440mag

Lawn Ranger said:


> ... These are not ordinary oak leaves. ... Thick and heavy.


Oh man, as soon as I spied the title of this thread, I shuddered. I ... feel ... your ... pain ...

Obviously, I have NO idea if what we finally did (on a former property, many years ago) might work for you but, on the rolling slopes lawn I was dealing with a combination of, "I surrender!" and "lawnscape judo" took a sizable estate from a near constant battle (trying to keep grass alive under tsunamis of those *&#[email protected]*!!! leaves) to winning some neighborhood awards.

We planted evergreen shrubs under the live oaks, from the drip line back in! Mountain laurels and other cultivars of laurels; some 3/4 year round blooming azaleas, camellias and some different hollies (dark, medium green and variegated leaf varieties). On,y had to mulch everything heavily the first year and ever since the downpour of those oak leaves from above keeps the evergreens thriving!

AND, now established, the shrubs do a great job of keeping the leaves from going anywhere ... wind, etc.

Crazy part of it is, within a year, the grass in the areas in between the "planned forest" areas came in and has remained stronger than ever (weird but a most welcome surprise)!

Obviuslly the part of the country you're in evergreens like we used may not be viable options but, there are plenty of low to mid-height plants that thrive in different parts of FL that should allow you to avoid spending an excess of precious time behind a lawn vac (ugh!) AND obtain that manicured "park-like" every bit as curb appealing as "all" turf ...

I do know I'll never"fight" those monster trees again (the ones we aren't willing to have removed, outsmart 'em, ha-ha)!

Best o' Success!


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## desirous

You guys confuse me... Live oaks are the most magnificent trees I have ever seen, I dream of owning a property like that. I can't imagine not wanting them... :shock:


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## 440mag

Well, I can assure you: the ones we dealt with (are still standing) in SC/GA were NOWHERE near that exquisite ... or close together (not sure where you got that photo - was it from the OP? - but, I can see how that particular photo could confuse anyone  !


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## desirous

440mag said:


> (not sure where you got that photo - was it from the OP? - but, I can see how that particular photo could confuse anyone  !


The photo is from Brookgreen Gardens, SC. I assumed all live oaks look lile that  .


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## Colonel K0rn

/not really a hijack but some pictures I took today

I took my son to Forsyth Park in Savannah, where they have the fountain dyed green for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day parade. FWIW, if the city can keep the park pretty devoid of leaves, there's got to be a solution for you @Lawn Ranger.


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## 440mag

desirous said:


> The photo is from Brookgreen Gardens, SC. I assumed all live oaks look lile that  .


They are certainly, in a word (and to me), breathtaking ! :thumbup:


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## Still learnin

This is kind of funny to me because I just got done checking on my live oak saplings that I started from acorns last fall. I love live oaks but I do see how they would be a pain.


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## Colonel K0rn

@Lawn Ranger I just saw a video with something that might be a solution to your problem. 3 year warranty, and 1 year risk-free warranty. You don't like it, they'll take it back, including shipping both ways. I actually said "Wow" when I saw that.

https://www.cyclonerake.com/


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## Lawn Ranger

I appreciate the suggestion. I don't know if I'm ready to blow $1700, but maybe it's the way to go.


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## Ecks from Tex

Lawn Ranger said:


> I appreciate the suggestion. I don't know if I'm ready to blow $1700, but maybe it's the way to go.


Billy Goat Vacuum in your state hyperlinked here. They are beasts with the leaves, look em up on youtube.


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## Lawn Ranger

What about a chain harrow? I don't think much of dethatchers and landscape rakes. They look like they would be flimsy and come apart. Maybe a chain harrow would rip this stuff loose so the lawn sweeper would eat it.


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## JDgreen18

Oak trees...
I have a lot of oak trees I have a good 10 on my property and live with 2 sides of my property butting up against woods were there is many more. I had 20 or so more on my property that I had removed. There was so much shade I couldn't grow anything plus they make a mess. 
Ok so how do I deal with them..
I have an acre of property a 450 foot driveway so I have some area to keep clean.
The tools
John Deere rider with a bagger. This works good, you need the high lift blades to create the vacuum. I usually let the bagger get full then mulch up all the leaves. Then empty the bagger and suck up the chopped up leaves.
This method works good in the beginning to the middle of the fall season after that I normally have to many unless I do it daily
I have a Fredan 11 hp blower this is my heavy hitter it moves big piles of leaves with ease...since I have woods bordering my property thats where I put them. 
There are some areas a rake and a sheet to carry them are used. I have been doing this for years and it works out fine.


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## gdr_11

I have two big (50 ft) Live Oak trees on my 2 acre lot. They are majestic trees but the leaves and acorns are a pain, especially when they drop long after I have finally cleaned up after the other oaks.

I mulch as mulch as I can, using Gator blades on my 46" mower but I burn the large drops after the February and March storms. I use a 55 gallon burn barrel and build a small pyramid of small firewood in the bottom so the air can flow in and keep the leaves burning instead of smoking. With the leaves piled up to the top of the barrel, and a handful of charcoal briquettes on top, the whole barrel will burn in about an hour.


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## LA Basshole03

I feel for you man. All my neighbors have Escarpment Live Oaks in south Texas. They are terrible when I comes to getting the leaves picked up. If I could I would take the chainsaw to them. I swapped to the New Honda and it seems to have helped out so far when I scalped the yard this weekend. But I know over the next few weeks the leaves will be back. I just wish I lived in an area where the leaves actually fall off in the Fall.


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## Gilley11

No you don't. Before I cut down most of the trees that give me problems on my property , I'd have to spend about an hour a night just to stay on top of everything so I didn't get buried by the weekend. I took out 3 oaks and 2 maples this year and got back not only my front yard but a lot of free time in the autumn.


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