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Comment by _Wintermute | Hacker News Reader

Living in Europe, most people just leave fallen leaves alone. I've never seen someone use a leaf blower except for dust etc. Is it a uniquely American thing to obsess over tidying up leaves?

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Part of it is because of lawns, if you have a lot of trees the leaves can simply smother your lawn.

But even in cities there’s reasons to clean them up. They clog drains, they lump together in the gutter creating blockages that cause large puddles when it rains, they stain the pavement, they decompose on the sidewalk and people track it everywhere in buildings, and more. Maybe you don’t see these as problems that need solving, but people aren’t tidying up leaves just for the fun of it, they have reasons. We’re not simply obsessed with cleaning up leaves.

Everywhere in America that I have lived, their primary use case is landscapers blowing leaves and trash from private property into the street, thereby clogging drains.

As an American, I have only ever seen the opposite. Pretty much everyone where I'm at just mows over the leaves. Blowers mostly used to clear streets and sidewalks. Rakes are sometimes used to collect leaves and burn them, but even that is uncommon.

However, I live in the midwest. We don't have as many trees here as the east or west coasts.

I'm on the East coast and I do mulch leaves with the mower for most of my lawn. However there are parts of the property where we have more trees and where leaves accumulate from being blown by the wind from other parts of the lawn. In those parts the lawn would probably die if I didn't clear the leaves myself.

However I also have honeylocust trees which drop loads of these large bean-like seed pods and these stems after the leaves fall which bunch up and can only be best described as like "wads of shaved pubic hair." I also have sweetgum trees which drop these hard, spiky seed pods that I also need to rake up. The mower can turn those into projectiles.

Really the best solution, in my case at least, would be to alter the landscaping in that area to something that would be unaffected by the leaves, but I don't have the time for that now. So clear leaves I do.

That's the smart way to go, decomposing leaves fertilize

This, same in Australia. Blow it into the road or the neighbours. Then no longer my problem. What is so difficult with using a rake and picking it up?

The American neighborhoods I've lived in, the lawn care companies blow them into piles, and then the city collects with the truck.

There's a LOT of leaves in the northeast. They absolutely NEED to be collected. It would bury the roads here if they didn't.

Just because they do that doesn’t mean they’re supposed to.

uhh, usually they bag them up where I've lived.

I have literally never seen this anywhere I’ve lived. It’s always been the opposite.

You're lucky. On multiple occasions I've had rocks and leaves blown into my face by one of these people, while I'm driving in a convertible car with the top down.

> Part of it is because of lawns, if you have a lot of trees the leaves can simply smother your lawn.

Do you think we don't have trees and lawns in Europe?

Of course I don’t think that. What made you think I did? Because I stated something that can happen?

Because someone asked 'why do they do this in America when they don't do it in Europe' and your explanation was 'because if you have lawns trees can smother them'. That doesn't make sense as an explanation to the question unless you think having lawns and trees or not is a difference between Americans and Europeans. Otherwise how does it apply?

All I stated was that if you have a lawn, it is possible for uncollected leaves to kill or damage parts of your lawn.

I don't know why "they" don't do it in Europe, I have no idea where the commenter I replied to is from in Europe. I was just stating one reason why people do it here.

Q: "Why do people in America clean leaves off the lawn?" A: "Because it's possible it can damage the lawn if you don't in some circumstances."

Simple as that. No idea why people do or do not do it elsewhere.

Why would it be any different elsewhere? Plants generally work the same no matter which country you're in.

Do you think they think you don't have trees and lawns in Europe? Why are you acting like this is hard to understand?

Because the statement was framed as a purely american problem

In some places they're a hazard. They get wet, people slip. Especially cyclists when the leaves get into the bike lane.

End of season forking them on to a hedgehog heap?

Frequent leaf blowing is very much an issue where i live in Sweden. Where can I move to escape the leaf blowing? I despise the energy waste and pollution, especially the noise. The leaf blowers never seem to be doing useful work anyway; all they do is to move small amounts of organic matter a couple meters.

>Where can I move to escape the leaf blowing?

1. Rural areas where each lot is >1 acre. You might get some weed whacking, but it is not as obnoxiously frequent as fastidious leaf blowers.

2. Move to the desert where there are no trees. Bonus = no mosquitoes.

Here in NL, leaf blowers are used by munipical park service employees. I can attest that the constant whining noise of these things can really drive you up the wall when you're trying to get some difficult work done from home.

I live in Europe and I have at least 3 neighbors that vacuum/blow leaves in rotation, with gas fueled leaf blowers, and I hate the fucking noise. I have a small electric one as well that I use once every 2 months at most.

In the UK, the local council blows them off of the town centre's paths, but not off the grass.

Saw plenty of leaf blower usage in Frankfurt, FWIW. So maybe some areas/cultures are just more fastidious about leaves than others?

Trump said you guys rake your forests though.

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