Photos by Jared Soares The Roanoke Times

Roanoke Valley Lawn Maintenance owner Tracey Bowles (left) and Yards Year Round owner Scott Nichols clear leaves from a lawn in the 3200 block of Fleming Avenue Northeast in Roanoke. The two businesses have teamed together for the past three years to provide lawn care services for customers and are busier than ever since the city stopped curbside leaf collection.

Yards Year Round employee Constantino Martinez clears the leaves off a Roanoke lawn. One yard services owner says leaf-clearing business has tripled this year.

Jared Soares The Roanoke Times

Yards Year Round employee Constantino Martinez clears the leaves off the lawn of a house on Fleming Avenue Northeast in Roanoke.

Editor's note: Roanoke no longer removes loose leaves from curbside. As reported, the city still accepts bagged leaves, as does Roanoke County. Portions of this article originally gave a different impression. This online version has been updated from the original print story to correct the error.

Roanoke's public works crews no longer suck up loose leaves piled curbside.

As a result, longstanding leaf collection outfits are raking in piles of new business this year in the city. And competitors are popping up like fall mushrooms.

"I'd say my business has tripled," said Tracey Bowles, owner and operator of Roanoke Valley Lawn Maintenance.

The city still picks up bagged leaves on weeks alternating with bulk trash days.

Bowles' summer work was steady, too, as grass grew faster than the national deficit.

"This has been my best year ever," Bowles said.

City residents who ignore, or are ignorant of, Roanoke's revised leaf standards could be stuck with a cleanup bill.

Beginning Sept. 8, depositing loose leaves in the city's right of way became a violation of city code.

Bowles and friend Scott Nichols, whose business is Yards Year Round, join forces each fall when deciduous trees part company with their leaves.

Nichols' leaf-gathering arsenal includes a trailer-borne vacuum outfitted with an elephant trunk-sized hose.

Other contractors suffering equipment envy keep calling.

"As far as just vacuuming goes, my work has probably tripled," he said. "I've got all these other guys who want me to vacuum for them."

Nichols works some nights by head lamp.

Seeing red

Autumn's palette of red, yellow and orange inevitably yields to monotone brown.

This year, some city residents still see red -- reacting to Roanoke's budget-crunched cessation of curbside collection.

Has Bob Bengtson, the city's director of public works, fielded a few testy phone calls?

"That would be accurate," he said.

City officials struggled this year to trim costs. Loose leaf collection bit the dust. Estimated savings are about $248,000.

Bengtson said savings will come through using existing trash collection staff to retrieve bagged leaves during alternating weeks when bulk items will not be collected.

The city hauls the bagged leaves to Rockydale Quarries in Roanoke, where they are "de-bagged" and added to a topsoil-producing process.

Residents are encouraged to use biodegradable paper sacks instead of plastic bags.

Loose leaf scofflaws who persist with past practices receive a warning. Failure to comply could result in paying the bill of a contractor called out to collect the leaves.

Bengtson said the city mounted an ambitious campaign to announce the new policies.

Venues included the Internet, radio, TV, newspaper, the Roanoke Civic Center's electronic marquee and more, he said.

But Nichols wonders.

"I've heard a lot of people say they didn't know anything about it," he said.

Collecting elsewhere

Locals routinely say Salem does sports right -- providing first-rate facilities, skillfully hosting NCAA tournaments and attracting athletes, fans and families who spend money.

It seems the small city of Salem might also boast the region's leaf collection Cadillac -- offering loose and/or bagged collection for months.

"If you can't get your leaves picked up in Salem, you're not trying," said Mike Stevens, city spokesman.

Mike Tyler is Salem's director of streets and maintenance.

"We didn't want to cut back on our leaf collection because the citizens are used to this type of service, and also because, in the long run, getting the leaves up helps preserve the integrity of the storm drain system," Tyler said. "The drains are much less likely to back up when they're not full of leaves."

Which is one reason Roanoke objects this fall to loose leaves loitering like unruly teens at curbsides.

Roanoke County, where many residents live in semirural settings, has not collected loose leaves for probably 15 years, said Anne Marie Green, director of general services. The county once provided the service for more densely populated neighborhoods like Penn Forest, she said. Most of the county's bagged leaves also travel to Rockydale Quarries.

Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Radford all pick up loose and bagged leaves.

During budget negotiations earlier this year, Blacksburg officials pruned brush collection from once a month to twice a year -- spring and fall -- a change expected to save the town $117,000 in the 2009-10 budget.

The work

Daniel Groth owns Penn Forest Contracting Services. He said the landscaping side of the business has seen a huge increase in demand this year for leaf collection from city residents.

"It's too time-consuming for them to fill all those bags," he said. "And you use a lot of plastic bags in the process."

Groth, Bowles, Nichols and competitor Juan Carlos Jaramillo, who owns Greenscapes, all declined to disclose what they charge customers. Each job varies, they said, according to the size of yards and a host of other factors.

Homeowner Faye Scanlon learned about Bowles' company from a small sign he'd poked into the ground along Williamson Road.

On Nov. 17, she watched as Bowles, Nichols and helper Constantino Martinez wielded powerful, shoulder-slung blowers and set to work on her yard off Fleming Avenue Northeast.

Fallen leaves blew out from shrubs like small brown birds. Blades of grass shivered in the artificial breeze. The men pushed the leaves to the street's edge, creating a waist-deep heap within reach of the vacuum hose.

Scanlon said she understands why the budget-challenged city did not make the collection of loose leaves a priority this year. Last fall, she and her husband, Daniel, raked their leaves to the road and left them there for the city.

As she talked, Scanlon eyed the mounting evidence of the men's work.

"If I was still a kid, I would love a pile of leaves like that."

Metro editor Shay Barnhart contributed to this report.

For more information about Roanoke's leaf collection program, go to www.roanokeva.gov and click on New Leaf Collection Schedule.