I have two mature walnut trees that have dropped a ton of leaves. I can't get in there with the tractor, but I have a 6HP push mower that is pretty light. The trick is to get the mower as low as possible, so that the leaves can't spin out until they are good and pulverized. I will try to get pictures of this because its like I am erasing the leaves. The leaves have the ground completely covered when I start, but it looks like they were never there when I finish. I mow in concentric circles clockwise because the mower tends to want to deposit on the right. Larger bits that blow to the right get picked up on the next pass.
Honestly, this is something I learned on my own out of laziness 20 years ago. Raking bad. Mowing good. From that point on, I have never raked leaves that I can recall. I blow or brush other stray leaves off of areas un-mowable (the deck for instance /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif ) to where I can mow em.
I will tilt the mower back (danger danger it says never to do this) and use the mower to blow the leaves off of rocks etc.
I would think the same things apply to larger mowers.
