I would think that the leaf compost would be an excellent top dressing for your lawn. I'd not apply a great deal at any one time; you don't want to smother the crowns. You'll find, as I have with my clay soil, that the soil micro- and macro organisms will soon till that compost in for you.

Nevermore44 wrote:
I have found a unlimited amount of pure leaf mold from a city collection site. It is just black crumbly dirt from their collect/shredded leaves.

Hi, do you mean your city is just giving away the leaf mold for free? If so, does the city rake its own parks to obtain the leaves, or do they require homeowners to separate the leaves from regular trash and other yard waste?

My city uses a private trash collection agency that picks up trash and yard waste separately, but I don't think leaf mold is given away for free. The private company probably uses the yard waste as another revenue stream--maybe it's sold off to local composting companies.

There are places that do collect leaves and other yard waste which are then piled up and left until they become leaf mold or maybe even some compost, and they do allow residents to haul that material away for free. Some do charge a small fee for it. Private collection companies will tend to want to sell the end result since they do have to pay employees to do the work.
That leaf mold can be spread, maybe up to 1/2 inch thick at any one time, and will eventually increase the amount of organic matter in the soil provided it is spread more than once a year, 3 or 4 times would be better. As long as the grass blades are not covered enough at any one time to keep them from getting sunlight and the grass crowns are not buried too deeply there should be no problem.

sounds good, i will plan to do this in the spring... minimally in the areas that are really bad.

And yes Zoysia... there are a lot of small townships in my area that collect their citizen's leaves. All they have to do is rake them to the edges of their yards and the township vacuums them up and shreds them. The one that i found that has the large amount of all stages of shredded leaves is from an area that is really old, so there are huge mature trees everywhere. I suppose the residents in that area don't want enough back, so they have it open to everyone. I have already collect a ton of the fresh shredded leaves to mulch my perennial beds.

You are noted to be near St Louis, so you just search the web for townships, towns, etc to see if anyone does it around you area. And if they state that it's only for their residents, still ask... because i ran into this at two other locations and the "manager" of the site was more then willing to give some away to help clear the collection a bit to non-residents

i have no idea where you are in St Lois.. but below is an example:

http://www.richmondheights.org/index.aspx?NID=351
http://www.richmondheights.org/index.aspx?NID=369

Nevermore44, thanks so much. I passed by the Richmond Heights leaf compost lot today. Wow, they have lotsa leaves available to everyone. And it's all free. The only stipulation is you not use the leaves for commercial / business purposes. You also have to use raw muscle power to scoop up the stuff. Motorized equipment is forbidden.

It really was the motherload. There were two huge mountains of leaves. Each mountain was about 20 feet high, 120 feet long and 32 feet wide. A very, very small quantity of the leaves was even chopped up. They also have wood chips.

That's good to hear. It's nice to find FREE stuff!

Obviously go for the shredded first. If you get the un-shredded, go for the older stuff if possible.. because of the matting issue that whole leaves can cause.

And last, even with a pitch fork or a manure fork... it's a pain to scoop them. Picking them up by hand is sometimes easier cause you can get large clumps at one time.

Good luck!