Leaf piles from space - that's a first :) What I would do with 17816 tons of leaves is give half to charity, a quarter to my extended family, and keep a quarter for myself, although I've been debating that last part with myself - sometimes it seems selfish, other times it seems too little and makes me feel resentful. But then some people say a windfall (!) of leaves brings bad luck to the winner, so giving them all away to needy composters - say north of the treeline - might be the best option after all.

I often store bags of leaves over the winter. I stock up in the fall at a nearby subdivision. I use the leaves to balance all the old produce I compost throughout the year. I get them from other people's yards, so some are shredded, some aren't, some have grass mixed in, but mostly they do not. The bags don't seem to shred in the sun unless I keep them for more than a year. Two falls ago I went a little berserk and stockpiled 3 truckloads of bags of other people's leaves, so last year I didn't scrounge any up. But the bags from two years ago sometimes came apart. Not much trouble with bag smells in the bags, as generally some weeds or something poked a hole in the bags. Marcia

Mike, One of my hobbies is breeding zinnias, and I use "hairnets" that I make from mesh fabric that I bought in the fabric department of Wal-Mart. The material is inexpensive and has an open mesh that allows easy air circulation and sun exposure, while keeping bees from getting at the flower. The nets don't harm the flowers or plants at all. Interestingly, I have seen butterflies sipping nectar from the zinnias through the mesh, but they don't go after the zinnia pollen, so I am glad that the butterflies can feed through the mesh. The nets are basically approximately square "sacks". I fold over a rectangular piece of the mesh and secure the top seam and side seem by weaving a piece of black yarn through the mesh. I alternate sides with the yarn about every ½" to ¾". The seam doesn't need to be really closely stitched. Obviously I leave the bottom open to allow the "hairnet" to fit down over the flower. I use black mesh and yarn because the black nets are less conspicuous in the garden. I just started using these nets last year and they have revolutionized my zinnia breeding. I used to have to race the bees to get at the pollen on my selected breeder zinnias, but now I can relax and get the pollen over a period of half a day, and have an abundant supply of good pollen. The bees are amazingly aggressive at grabbing any available zinnia pollen. The nets also keep the bees from randomly pollinating my selected breeder flowers. Here is a picture of one of the nets on a zinnia. This zinnia was in rather poor shape because it is one that I grew from a cutting this fall and I just used it as a "model" to wear a net for this picture which I just now made. My breeder zinnias typically look much better than this one, as you can see for yourself by looking at their pictures in the It can be fun to breed your own zinnias message thread in the Annuals forum. I make the nets in several sizes to accommodate different sized flowers. You shouldn't have any trouble making these nets to your own specifications from needles, yarn, and mesh fabric from a local fabric store. MM

Consider also that with long leaves you don't have to prune the entire leaf, just the lower part. Another option would be to tie the middle of the leaves into a higher position. Or try different tactics and see what works best.