Mulching leaves: Mowers, not just for lawns

This is one reason why I wish I had an electric lawn mower: to chop autumn leaves into bite-sized, easily composted pieces. This is a trick you can use now. My rickety, ancient push mower (all I can justify for my narrow strip of grass, which soon might disappear completely) doesn’t have the ooomph required. […]

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Tarry black spot on maples

Black tar spot of maples (Rhytisma acerinum) is one of the few excuses I can accept for sending your leaves off in the yard waste truck. Toronto gardeners have likely noticed this unsightly fungal disease over the past few years. It manifests as dime- or quarter-sized black spots on leaves, hitting many kinds of maple […]

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