Do you think yard maintenance companies jack up prices for leaf collection?
What's the going rate for leaf blowing in your area?

I have a local company that's mowed my grass for years, but I've always raked leaves myself. I'll do it a couple of times.
In part, because I don't think I have THAT many leaves, in part because it's exercise and it makes me feel like I'm doing something to maintain my yard and it gives me a chance to notice condition and other stuff -- and in part because I think his price is a fair bit on the high side.

He charges 32.00 a mow.....which I think is great...
But he charges 300.00 for leaf collection - that includes two visits.

Granted, in our area some lots have A LOT of trees and he has customers with various size lots, so I guess he keeps it simple with one price.
Is it me? Is that high? What do people pay where you are?

Phew! I could rake a LOT of leaves before I paid someone $300 to do it!
Don't you have any kids in the neighborhood who might like to earn some money doing it? You could even call your local high school to see if they have a student who could use the work...or some of your local churches.

Rake the leaves.
Put into black yard bags.
Poke holes in bags--use a screwdriver and enjoy.
Pile bags where they won't be a nuisance and eye-sore.
Come spring you'll have the loveliest of leaf mold you've ever seen. Cut open bags; spread out mold; let dry; cast about yard. Your grass will love it.

Did some leaves today with the bag system on one tractor. Raked others and put around bayberries (they love acidic oak leaves). We pile shredded leaves in a 6x6x4' mesh area and use for making compost when mowing time begins.
Love doing leaves. I really do.
Our leaf pile never gets larger; the air is compressed out naturally and the pile shrinks and we add more.

Why are those leaves even being raked up? The best place for them is right back into the soil they came from, mulch mow them do not rake..
To determine of what landscaper should charge you need to know how many hours (man hours) are needed and the labor rate, plus equipment costs, plus any charges he may need to pay to dump your leaves, plus some profit.

$300.00 for a labor of love does seem to be a bit....quite a bit -high.
You say you don't have that much leaves and you usually rake them up.

If indeed it is exercise, then think how much you can enjoy a fall day jumping into the pile afterwards....then forget that and bag them.

As M-Ma has pointed out, leaves can make great leaf mold that roses especially can be given next season.

Think what you can do with $300.00....
better in your pocket than his.

Unless the leaf cover is extremely high, I'd just have your yard guy mow them into the yard. If you insist on raking them, hire a middle school or high school aged kid to do it. My son will do the typical .25-.33 acre lot in our subdivision for $40.

In my own yard I mow them in, occasionally I'll cut the grass and bag them to add to the compost pile because it is a perfect blend of browns and greens for the pile.

I'll go around my neighborhood and collect up leaves that neighbors have put out for yard waste collection. I use the leaves as mulch in my "natural" areas of my yard. It beats buying pine straw or shredded hardwood mulch.

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As M-Ma has pointed out, leaves can make great leaf mold that roses especially can be given next season.

What, rotting leaves at the base of roses? Doesn't rotting stuff by roses invite black spot, etc?

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What, rotting leaves at the base of roses? Doesn't rotting stuff by roses invite black spot, etc?

Nope. While the spores of Black Spot do overwinter on infected leaves, the infectged leaves of roses not Maple or Oak, a mulch of those leaves can help keep any spores that might be under that mulch from being spashed onto your roses.

I will check out how much the leaves are mulched when they mow. My last mow will likely be by the end of this month. SO I may (and likely will rake once -- as I said for a combination of reasons.

I was just curious what others charge.

(I do do it myself, but of course I would find some kid to pay before I paid my lawn guy 300.00 I don't think is worth it)

To answer your question: $300 is too much.
He's probably charging by the hour and planning on hand-raking, bagging, and hauling from the property.
You can do that for the cost of the bags.
Mulching many leaves into the soil over a period of time can make the soil too acidic (I asked our lawn care man about that a few years back).
At the end of the season, when we'll full of shredded leaves everywhere (I do add shredded around the plantings in the foundation), we will mow them in to the yard.

Mgt, Kimm explained it a lot better than I could but to assure yourself about what I suggested go to Google and ask about the benefits of leaf mold.

Its not suggested that you put the leaves in the soil beneath the roses but to turn the leaves into the leaf mold and feed it to the roses.
Much like pumpkin really get a charge out of manure, roses get theirs from leaf mold.

The idea that putting leaves into the soil will make the soil acidic is a myth. A study done at the New Haven Ag. Research Station by Dr. Abigail Maynard, pHD in soil science, found that after adding Oak leaves and pine needles to soils for many years did not result in a significant change in soil pH. I have added many leaves over many years to my soil which started some 40 years ago with a pH of 5.7 is now 7.2 and there has been no lime added.

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Originally posted by Loonie:
Mgt, Kimm explained it a lot better than I could but to assure yourself about what I suggested go to Google and ask about the benefits of leaf mold.

Its not suggested that you put the leaves in the soil beneath the roses but to turn the leaves into the leaf mold and feed it to the roses.
Much like pumpkin really get a charge out of manure, roses get theirs from leaf mold.

Oh lordy, let it go. Joke.

He's a professional lawn care company, with a couple of crews. I highly doubt they're hand raking.

We have a third acre+ lawn with two huge Red oaks, plus every neighbor has oak, ash, locust, sycamore, etc. It normally takes us less than an hour to mulch mow the turf. When the leaves are heavy in the fall, double the time. First mulch, then go over the whole lawn and pick up excess in at least half the area.

I would like to say we could just mulch and leave it, but we would have no grass if we did so...the leaves are just that thick in November.

So if your lawn service normally bags and removes grass clippings, I think it should be at least double for the leaf pick up? Of course if they are having to rake leaves from under shrubbery and clear patio spaces, this would take more time, so cost plus.

Hiring someone to do it for you (Craig's list, neighbor kids, retiree (My DM is 95 and LOVES to rake leaves), it may be less costly for you. Most trash services will do special pick ups if you arrange it, but paper bags are often required at landfill dump sites.
.

We weren't aware that our lawn treatment expert doesn't know squat. Thanks, Kimm.

Without knowing the size of the property how can anyone say what is a fair price? Does the landscaper also have to pay to dispose of the debris?

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Originally posted by Chuck Steak:
Without knowing the size of the property how can anyone say what is a fair price? Does the landscaper also have to pay to dispose of the debris?

At $32 for a cut, 10x the cost for leaves seems a bit excessive. It would cost me more than $32 to have my .33 acre yard cut in Cary, NC by someone other than my son. ;-)

For many years, at church, the leaves in the fall were raked up, bagged up, and we paid someone to haul them away and we have 10 people working 4 hours raking and bagging up those leaves, ie. 40 man hours. if we paid people the minimum wage which is about $7.98 per hour that would be $319. something per cleanup and it usually was not done in one day. Add into that the usual business costs and you can easily see it gets very expensive.
Several years ago I persuaded yard cleanup people to mulch mow the leaves back into the lawn which greatly reduced our fall cleanupo costs, especially since the lawn needed mowing anyway, and the lawn is now growing greener, thicker, faster then ever before and we see a lot of worm castings that we had not seen when we raked.
Raking leaves is very labor intensive and if you hire people to do that you will pay, in addition to wages, workers compensation, insurance, equipment depreciation, several taxes and maybe licensing fees, plus some small amount for profit with which the owner grows his businees.
If this person removes your leaves and takes them and composts them then he should be paying you to rake your yard to get a raw material that he sells later on.

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mulch mow the leaves back into the lawn which greatly reduced our fall cleanupo costs, especially since the lawn needed mowing anyway, and the lawn is now growing greener, thicker, faster then ever before and we see a lot of worm castings that we had not seen when we raked.

When I first moved into my house in '99, I used to rake/bag 60 to 100 large leaf bags, depending on how the wind delivered the neighborhood's leaves.

About 5 or 6 years agon, out of frustration of raking up all the neighborhood's leaves, I jumped on them with the mower.

Since that day, I have never bagged one leaf. let alone a bagfull. As for the leaves in the beds and hardscape, I blow them into the driveway, run the mower back and forth over them, then blow the dust into the yard. I don't know whether it has made the lawn 'better' but it sure the heck hasn't hurt it.

40 mph winds yesterday.
Leaves are no longer a concern on our acre plus.

I still advocate mow, rake, bag and turn into leaf mold.
Last mowing was not picked up; many leaves were mowed and remowed into small pieces and will, over winter, break down into the grass.
Too much of anything is not good.

I have mulch mowed leaves 6 inches thick and have seen them moved into the soil by the Soil Food Web in under two weeks. By the following August a soil test for organic matter indicates that the soil only has about 2 percent, much below that 6 to 8 percent a good, healthy soil needs. While residual organic matter of around 20 percent can be too much I've not been able to get there, yet.

I admit, I don't rake my leaves; its just too much labor for me. But I do use the mower--as a matter of fact, the trees hanging on to their leaves much longer--into November, is the reason why I have just today put my mower to bed.
Its no work at all to empty my Toro bag into a large gardening debris bag and placing it out back behind my hedge. (my compost cant take any more) There it sits until I finally tire of seeing them there and doing something with them.