Leaf It Out

I have just seen the bizarrest thing possibly in my 8 and a half years working within Parliament.

There is a man being employed to remove (by hand) all the leaves from the trees on the green in front of Members' Entrance (i.e. the one by Carriage Gates above the Parliamentary car park).

What can possibly be the reason for this action? Has the Serjeant at Arms now lost faith/patience in the powers of nature working the leaves free of their own accord?

Or is it a Health and Safety issue in case a leaf falls on someone and injures them? (If that happened you'd have to report it to your trade union - at least to the local branch. ;-))

Or could it be that, like in Alice in Wonderland, the Queen has ordered the botanical alterations ahead of her visit next week?

It is simply weird.

If you pop down there now, you will see that half the trees have leaves and half the trees don't. :-/
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(Photo Source: David Monniaux, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Feuille_rouge.jpg)