mowing oak leaves

[walleyemkr]

I gave the yard one last mow on Saturday w/o raking the early fallen oak leaves prior. A neighbor apparently had nothing better to do and asked me if I've ever heard that shredding oak leaves w/ the mower was "bad for the lawn". I guess I've always mowed oak leaves in my "last mow of the year" and never noticed anything...is there anything to the neighbor's theory or did she truly have nothing better to do than to harass the "under 30" kid next door? I guess it's not so much that I care, but more of a curiosity question I suppose.

[LwnmwnMan2]

While some people think that oak leaves will cause the ground to become more acidic, what I see is when you have too many of them, especially if you don't do a real real fine job of mulching them into VERY small pieces, that they'll have a tendency to smother a poorly established lawn.

Maple leaves, ash, softer wood trees, the leaves will turn more to a dust than the oaks.

[walleyemkr]

That makes sense I guess... I still rake after they've all fallen, so safe to assume it wouldn't matter then? (It's not like a newly seeded / sodded lawn or anything, definitely established.) I probably mowed 10% of the leaves that will fall total, and a full lawn raking takes place once the majority hit the lawn. If I follow what you're saying, mowing the oak leaves in this scenario probably won't make any kind of 'lawn health' difference, especially since I rake later(?).

[LwnmwnMan2]

Not drastically, no.

Eventually down the road, or even sooner as a preventive measure, next spring or two you might want to get a soil sample sent in, just to check the acidicy of the soil.

Again, some people say oak leaves throw it off, I personally don't deal with enough yards with mature oak leaves on a weekly basis to have first hand knowledge one way or the other.

[WaveWacker]

I have too large of an area to mow (~3 ac.) to even begin to think of raking. I just wait for them to be nice and dry and mulch them up. I'll try to blow the thicker areas into the wood edge. Haven't had any problems and this has been done for years and years.