A Boston Startup Is Offering $1 a Leaf for Pristine Foliage

Peep this: ShipFoliage, a site that launched last year exporting perfect New England maple leaves to parts foreign, is in a bind. Drought and gypsy moths have brought a less than perfect fall foliage season here and the startup is running short of leaves to wash, coat, package, bundle and sell. Last year, ShipFoliage shipped out more than 1,800 "hand collected and crafted" leaves, co-founder Kyle Waring said. This year, they're on track to sell 3,000, he said--some of them in higher-margin offerings like leaf jewelry. To hit that number, they're going to need some help. Drought conditions and ravenous pests have made good leaves hard to come by this year. ShipFoliage just launched cash4leaves.com, on which they're offering to buy for $1 a leaf any blazing red, orange or yellow maple leaves you may find on your walks through New England's wooded hills. Caveat: You have to send them at least 100 and they have to be perfect, no brown spots at all."The summer was so warm & dry that we noticed our favorite trees from last year were turning a lot earlier. Just in August we collected hundreds of leaves which we supplied magazines for early fall photoshoots," he told me. "Fast forwarding 2 months later, and we've noticed significant leaf drop (especially this weekend) in the greater Boston area. It's making us very nervous about the end of our fall foliage season." Waring and wife Jessica Waring started ShipFoliage in 2015 after launching the quasi-gag site, ShipSnowYo.com, during the historic, 109-inch snowfall of Boston's 2014-2015 winter. It's a side project: Kyle Waring is a product manager at GSN Games. Jessica Waring is a schoolteacher. Last I talked with Kyle, he said nobody had taken him up on his new offer. Photo credit