Bird netting to trap our neighbor’s sycamore leaves
The massive sycamore ( Platanus × hispanica ) in our neighbor’s front yard provides valuable shade for her house, but in the fall, it becomes the bane of my existence. It produces a seemingly endless stream of leaves – large leaves that curl up and are difficult to dislodge with a leaf blower. Our neighbor’s sycamore at the very beginning of its leaf drop Because of our prevailing winds (typically from the north), a lot of the sycamore leaves get blown our way. The most immediate destination is the driveway bed my friend Kyle helped me redo last December ( see here ). This bed is full of hechtias, agaves, and aloes – spiky, toothy, and/or prickly plants that trap the leaves and make manual removal painful. In an effort to make my life a little easier, I decided to try something new: bird netting, like you would use in an orchard to prevent birds from eating the fruit. And it seems to be doing the trick. Here’s a photo of the leaves piling up on our neighbor’s side instead of being blo