Every fall, the leaf blowers come out and the whole neighborhood starts bagging up the best free soil amendment there is. Then come spring, everyone heads to the garden center to buy mulch and compost. We see the irony, and we bet you do too.
An ecological fall cleanup works with what the land is already trying to do. Trees drop their leaves right at their own roots to feed the soil, protect it through winter, and give overwintering insects a place to hide. Our job is to help that along without making a mess of your walkways or smothering your lawn.
It's a nuanced process, and every yard is a little different. But if you remember one thing from this post, make it the next section.
The golden rule: put leaves where they can stay until summer.
The most important part of an ecological fall cleanup is deciding where your leaves are going to live. Put them somewhere they can stay, untouched, until summer.
That means not piling them into a spot you're going to clear out again in April or May. If you rake leaves into a bed in October and then rake them right back out in spring, you've done twice the work. Worse, you've evicted every insect that spent the winter tucked inside them, right before they were ready to wake up.
So before you move a single leaf, ask yourself: will these be left alone until the weather warms up? If the answer is no, find them a better home.
How we do it:
Here's the process our crew follows on most fall cleanups.
Blow the leaves out of the beds. Whole leaves can mat down thick over perennials and groundcovers, so we clear the beds first.
Mulch them into the lawn. We run the leaves over with a mower, which chops them into small pieces that break down much faster.
Put the shredded leaves back in the beds, or remove the excess. Chopped leaves make a fluffy, breathable mulch that won't smother your plants. If there's more than the beds and lawn can use, that's when we haul some away. Use a blower or a mower with a bagger to move them from lawn to garden.
Yes, the leaves end up back where they started. That's kind of the point. They just come back smaller, easier to break down, and better for the plants underneath.
Recognize where the leaves fall…
Areas below large trees likely lack grass growth, and are the exact place leaves are intended to land. Support your trees’ efforts by making a leaf mulch ring around their drip line (how far out the canopy is) and towards the base of the tree. This supports the tree’s health as well as creates habitat for the tree’s inhabitants!
Your inquiry into this alone is a step in the right direction, so thank you for being curious about shifting the paradigm, and good luck with your ecological fall clean up!