Leaves... blessing or worst enemy?

One of the great things about the skillion roof on both of the houses I'm working on is that it allows for a very simple guttering system. One gutter, on the lowest edge. There's the carports too, which also only need the one piece of guttering. This makes protecting them against leaf debris a very straightforward procedure. I choose to use a system by Blue Mountain Mesh -  here it is installed on Number 27:

 

Unlike some other mesh gutter protection systems, this mesh covers the edge of the roof sheeting completely, and is attached using a fitting contoured to the corrugations in the iron. No leaves can get into the gutter at all. The very small particles that do go through (say, for example, when the gums are in blossom and those tiny flower particles rain down when the lorikeets have been feasting) don't accumulate, because the next time it rains they get washed into the downpipe. Those few leaves and sticks that you can see resting at the top of the mesh? They'll get blown or washed off in the next storm. It's an excellent low-maintenance system that has already worked very effectively for us on our home at Number 29. It is also very good at keeping vermin out of your roof.

I find it a real shame that as the remaining blocks of land in this development get built on, the mature gums that had been left on the blocks (the ones that made the development look so attractive at first) have all been cut down. In most cases they had been left in locations where the sympathetic buyer could have retained them. I guess people just don't like leaves in their gutters. (Get Blue Mountain Mesh!) Us? We like trees, and when we were planning our house at Number 29 we sited it specifically so we could retain the two big gums on the block. We've found that the heavy shade from the ironbark in the front garden really helps keep our place cool on summer mornings, and the spotted gum at the side does the same in the afternoons. It can get bakingly hot in this area (temperature-wise, we're similar to Ipswich in the forecasts) so having the house shaded for much of the day is a real benefit for us. We also love the visiting bird life, which has included lorikeets, rosellas, galahs, cockatoos and currawongs, as well as the resident crows, maggies and mickies. We've got a spotlight pointing up the trunk of each tree, which at night makes the trees quite an incredible feature.

Number 25 Chapman Place has a number of lovely mature gums that have been retained. There is one large spotted gum at the front of the house, tucked into the front corner close to the boundary with Number 27.

This is the big spotted gum in the front of Number 25. At the far left you can also see the ironbark I was talking about - the one in the front garden that shades our place so well in summer.

The Queensland Silver Wattle that we planted in the front of Number 25 (before we even started building at Number 29) is now about three years old, and flowering profusely. The mickies have built a nest among the flowers right at the top.

The tree you can see behind the trunk of the spotted gum is an Eprapah Wattle planted in the front of Number 27. It's covered in masses of buds, so should be fully in bloom in a couple of weeks.

You can just see a tail poking out of the nest... and a bit of unravelled twine they've scavenged as a building material.

Towards the rear of the the back yard of Number 25 there's two mature spotted gums and a number of smaller eucalypts, plus a few black wattles. The largest spotted gum has the most wonderful textured trunk.

Number 27 doesn't have any mature trees, but there is a very large gum and a number of smaller trees just over the back fence. Leaves can travel a very long way in a storm!

It's our hope that whoever buys Number 25 will not see the mature trees in a negative way. The current outlook from the back deck of this house is pleasantly leafy, and the trees hide the undeniably ugly power pylons that would otherwise be visible, not only from this block but also from the surrounding properties. The installation of an effective gutter leaf protection system like the Blue Mountain Mesh I have used should prevent any problems in that regard.