Put down the rake! Your lawn wants you to mow the fall leaves, expert says

Raking leaves is tedious and a chore. So don’t do it. In fact, that’s the lawn care advice one regional expert from Virginia Tech has.

One regional expert says that tedious chore of raking leaves can be left until the end of fall.

“It’s actually kind of disgusting how easy this can be,” said Mike Goatley, an extension turf grass specialist and professor in the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

Now bear in mind, if your community asks you to rake leaves to the curb so a machine can come by, suck them up, and eventually turn them into mulch or compost, this advice might not apply. But if you’re raking and bagging just so all those leaves end up in a landfill somewhere, then put the rake down and get out your lawnmower instead.

“When we return those leaves by chopping them up, we basically are giving something that’s going to be more readily broken down in the soil by the microbes that live there,” Goatley said. “They’re going to release that organic matter.”

It’s especially healthy for your lawn.

“One of the things that we constantly tell people is we’re trying to build up some level of organic matter in the soil,” he added. “By recycling our leaves, that is going to be a very easy way of building up that soil carbon.”

On the flip side, if you have your yard covered with leaves, it’s blocking the sun from hitting your grass, which stifles photosynthesis. If it rains, the moisture levels underneath can also lead to more diseased grass too. Mowing those leaves into the ground takes care of all of that.

“It makes for a much happier microbial population by basically recycling and restoring this leaf litter into the soil,” Goatley said.

If you have pine needles falling on your lawn, mowing those won’t have the same benefits.

“Pine straw is highly resistant to degradation, and it slowly but surely starts to accumulate to levels that you really don’t want it to have in the soil,” he said. “Basically, it becomes almost its own thatch layer, plus it also tends to have an acidifying effect on the soil that’ll ultimately have to be managed with a lime application to correct pH.”

You’ll want to rake up the pine needles instead, and you can use it as mulch in your gardens. Goatley also suggests dropping some fertilizer on your lawn too.

“A little fertilizer in the fall is going to go a long ways toward having the best looking lawn next spring,” he said. “You’ll get the return on the rewards next year, when next year’s grass season begins.”

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