My Boise front garden this summer, two years after smothering the lawn with leaves.
Got leaves? Use them to boost your garden’s soil and plant health, facilitate the design and creation of new planting beds, turn problem areas into productive ones, and save yourself labor and money, all while doing the green thing. Here are six rewarding, practical alternatives to raking leaves into bags and hauling them off your property.
1. Spread thinly over planted areas. If they’re only an inch or two deep, leave leaves where they have fallen around perennials, shrubs, and trees. Distribute a two-inch layer over the rest of your planted areas as well. Larger or coarser leaves will act as a mulch — suppressing seedling germination, retaining soil moisture, and minimizing erosion. If you shred the leaves first, or if they are naturally small and friable, they will break down more easily and will act more like a soil conditioner than a mulch. Grass clippings can be mixed in for extra nutrition. More details on spreading leaves over perennial beds from Penn State Extension.
2. Spread thinly over lawn. Mow over a light layer of leaves where they have fallen onto a lawn. This will break them into pieces that are less likely to pack down and smother the grass but can sift down between the blades and enrich the soil as they decompose. For stretches of lawn without fallen leaves, spread a thin layer over your lawn and shred with the mower, or shred first and then spread. More details on using fallen leaves to benefit lawns from University of Minnesota Extension.
3. Spread deeply under shrubs. Rake fallen leaves under the skirts of shrubs for a weed-suppressing mulch and nutritious compost all in one. Shrubs of woodland origin can easily handle a deep mulch of leaves, though any groundcover plants under them may smother. Want more shrubs? A thick blanket of leaves can induce arching and suckering woody plants to layer (produce new plants from buried trailing branches), and those new plants will be ready to cut free and dig up within a year or two.
4. Spread deeply to kill lawn. Pile fallen leaves over a section of lawn to smother it for planting next year. A foot-deep layer of leaves should be sufficient to kill a fescue lawn. If your lawn plants are particularly tough, lay cardboard first for extra help with weed suppression. (If you are smothering lawn over a tree’s root zone, tackle no more than a quarter of the root zone per year.) With enough warmth, moisture, and soil life, your leaves might mostly decompose over the first winter, or it could take a year or so for them and the erstwhile lawn to transform into rich, crumbly, worm-filled topsoil.
Here’s the front yard in December 2013, with piled leaves shaping the new beds. Remaining lawn shows where the stepping stone paths will be.
5. Make more places for leaves. Design planting beds that can take your extra leaves every year — leaf processing areas, so to speak. Site them within convenient raking distance of (or within) your lawn, patio, and paved areas. Plant tall, robust shrubs in them and plan to add a deep layer of leaves to those beds every year. An island within the lawn can be planted with native berrying and flowering shrubs to become a songbird haven. Site it so it provides a four-season view from a window of the house or from an outdoor sitting area. A hedge along the driveway also makes an excellent leaf processing area; just sweep them off the pavement and into the shrubbery.
6. Get your compost mix right. Set aside a bag or two of leaves to spread thinly over the compost pile every time you empty your kitchen scrap bucket onto it. This will help to mask unpleasant odors, balance green materials with brown, and speed decomposition.
Now for the caveats:
As you may have deduced from our recent discussion about the National Wildlife Federation’s leaf-leaving advice, it’s important to consider your climate and site, the type of leaves you have, and the plants you are growing.
While some leaves break down quickly (honeylocust, for instance), thick and leathery leaves such as magnolia or oak may not decompose for years without being shredded first. These latter types of leaves will require extra effort to incorporate into your garden.
If you are cultivating mosses or other fragile groundcovers under your trees, a deep leaf layer will kill them.
Aesthetics can play a part in your choices too.
But before you bag them and send them away, consider how those free fallen leaves might benefit you and your garden.
Perennials, annuals, and vegetables, including dryland native plants, are thriving in the decomposed leaves.
Six Ways to Use Fallen Leaves in Your Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on November 18, 2015.