This Fall my health deteriorated a lot so we hired out most of the clean-up so far. We had a business I've used before come in an do most of the cutting-down of tall perennials (the short ones will be left to 'compost in place'; some of those will get cleaned up in Spring - maybe....) They did a reasonably good job but DH had to rake the paths in the backyard afterwards. The business crew of just two (plus DH doing some things...) were here for 3.5 hours and didn't have time to do more. *sigh* There are a lot of things that would have been done if I was able to be out there! There are a lot more leaves still to come down but we'll only do a bit more raking to clear the paths and leave the rest of the leaves in the beds to 'compost in place' - that is what we'd do anyway at this point.... Keeping the paths clear gives the garden structure an makes it look neater than when there is a lot of fallen leaves hiding the paths :-) Some pictures from the backyard:

Oct.23 'before':

From this morning after raking the path cleaner, cutting some things down, and lots of leaves fallen off the trees and shrubs:

A little further NW past the shed this morning:

Have you used a company to do some clean-up? If so, what did they do? Are you happy with the work? As we age, I think this will become a common event if we wish to keep the garden going here... The neighbour to the south is now in his 90s and has a much-simplified garden and a garden service. His kids (now in their 60s+) and a couple of his grandchildren who live not too far away do some stuff but he's definitely had to scale things back. I hate to do it but I think scaling back garden work will likely be in our future too :-(.