Leaves have been browning and falling prematurely for weeks now due to late summer’s dry weather, but the real fall leaf drop will take hold in a few more weeks.
Is the resulting blanketing of the ground (and accompanying raking/leaf-blowing) a good thing or a pain in the, er, back? Do all of those leaves even need to be raked or blown?
The answers lie in your point of view.
On one end is the view that fall is nature’s time to dump its trash in our yards, creating back-breaking clean-up work.
At the other end is the view that leaves are one of nature’s best gifts, a time of free mulch and numerous benefits to the ecosystem.
To proponents of the first view – the traditional one in suburbia — all “good neighbors” rake up or blow off the leaves that fall in the yard, lest they smother lawns and besmirch the neighborhood.
Some homeowners despise falling leaves so much that they rid their yards of all trees and erect fences to keep “the neighbor’s leaves” from blowing in.
Others are more concerned about safety angles, i.e. cars can skid on wet leaves, piles of leaves can clog storm sewers and cause spot flooding, and hot engines from cars parked on top of dry curbside leaves sometimes ignite fires.
Those with allergies and breathing concerns point to how fallen pollen, spores, animal droppings, and other ground-borne pollutants are stirred up by all of those leaf blowers.
And another big contingent rues leaf-drop time because they can’t or don’t want to devote the energy it takes to dispatch all of those dropping leaves — sometimes several times each season.
But then there’s the other side to fallen leaves … one that values leaves as a rich resource instead of nature’s trash.
Besides the benefit of trees in general (creating shade, creating oxygen, filtering air pollution, sequestering carbon, giving food and shelter to wildlife, etc.), dropped leaves are an organic powerhouse — nature’s key ingredient in building soil.
When leaves drop and decay in yards, they add nutrition to the soil as well as organic matter.
When they drop under shrubs and on top of our soon-to-be-dormant perennial-flower beds, they provide a natural blanket that insulates plants over winter.
The combination of fallen leaves and grass clippings and/or spent plants from the yard also makes the perfect recipe for homemade compost. Worked into the soil, this leaf-fueled compost is the best antidote to lousy clay soil and a free ingredient to blend with potting soil for container plants.
Leaves can be such a valuable resource that avid/zealous gardeners have been known to gather leaves from others’ curbs.
Left in place to decay, leaves break down into nutritious organic matter (i.e. free fertilizer).
Michigan State University researchers once compared lawns where leaves were mowed and left to decay in place vs. those in which the leaves were raked off. They found that the leaves-on lawns were healthier and better performing, primarily because the decaying leaves added organic matter and nutrition to the lawn.
What to do? Here are some possible compromises and practical middle grounds to consider:
1.) It’s possible to achieve a reasonably “neat-looking” yard without blowing or raking every last leaf out of the yard.
In the lawn, for example, large amounts of leaves can mat down and smother the grass, but small to moderate amounts can be mowed into bits that quickly break down and/or lodge between grass blades.
If you like the lawn neat, run over leaves with the mower twice to double-chop them. And if the leaves keep dropping, mow a little more often before the quantities have a chance to build up.
In landscaped beds, a layer of fallen leaves is an excellent mulch over top of frost-killed perennials, underneath evergreens, and between shrubs.
If you don’t like the look, once the leaves are down, top them with a light coating of wood chips, pine-straw, or bark mulch (either later in fall or early next spring). The leaves don’t have to be removed first.
2.) Leaves on hard surfaces such as driveways, sidewalks, and roads serve no useful purpose, so that’s one place where it makes sense to remove them.
They can be run over with a mower and transferred as mulch to landscape beds or added to compost piles if you’d rather not bag them or move them to the curb for municipal removal.
Besides mowing and collecting fallen leaves, a blower-vac – set on the vacuum function is an excellent work-saving tool.
The machine sucks up leaves and pulls them through an impeller that chops them before depositing them in an attached bag.
A blower vac — set on vacuum — sucks up leaves and chops and bags them for use in the compost bin or elsewhere in the yard.Susan Weigel
3.) For larger pile-ups or for leaves that are covering evergreen perennials or evergreen groundcovers, remove them but chop and relocate them as mulch or compost fodder.
Save a few bags of chopped/mowed leaves for use as mulch under flowers and vegetables next growing season or for amending the soil prior to new plantings.
If you have no place to recycle the leaves on site, ask around the neighborhood for gardeners who believe there is no such thing as too many leaves. Odds are someone will put them to use locally.
Many municipalities now have leaf-recycling facilities where they compost collected leaves and offer the finished product back to residents. Even though that’s more costly than recycling in place, it makes use of a natural product instead of landfilling it.
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