Gardeners love leaves!
Don’t hurt your back and spend a lot of needless effort raking and bagging leaves. There’s a better way - and it encourages you to avoid raking altogether.
Try using those leaves as mulch instead - it’s good for your landscape, good for the environment, and easier on you. See our article on mulching plants in Fall before the freeze-thaw of Winter begins).
Gather leaves for mulch when they are dry, or mow dry leaves on the lawn without a grass catcher to create an airy, natural mulch for the lawn. If you’ve got a mulch setting on your mower, make sure you’ve got it set to 'mulch'.
If you’ve got a lot of leaves and don’t have a mulch setting on your lawn mower, it might take an extra pass or two with the mower to break up all of the leaves. The smaller the pieces, the more quickly they will decompose. Those biodegradable fragments return nutrients to your landscape, supporting root growth, micro-organisms, and worms.
Mulched leaves and grass clippings also help regulate the soil temperature when it gets cold, retain moisture in soil on dry days, and can reduce weed propagation next year.
Got piles of fallen leaves in your flowerbeds? Leave them, or move them to other garden areas and around trees and shrubs.
Mulching is a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle at one time, and with less effort than bagging leaves and importantly, saving the landfills of plastic bags filled with leaves.
Try using those leaves as mulch instead - it’s good for your landscape, good for the environment, and easier on you. See our article on mulching plants in Fall before the freeze-thaw of Winter begins).
Gather leaves for mulch when they are dry, or mow dry leaves on the lawn without a grass catcher to create an airy, natural mulch for the lawn. If you’ve got a mulch setting on your mower, make sure you’ve got it set to 'mulch'.
If you’ve got a lot of leaves and don’t have a mulch setting on your lawn mower, it might take an extra pass or two with the mower to break up all of the leaves. The smaller the pieces, the more quickly they will decompose. Those biodegradable fragments return nutrients to your landscape, supporting root growth, micro-organisms, and worms.
Mulched leaves and grass clippings also help regulate the soil temperature when it gets cold, retain moisture in soil on dry days, and can reduce weed propagation next year.
Got piles of fallen leaves in your flowerbeds? Leave them, or move them to other garden areas and around trees and shrubs.
Mulching is a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle at one time, and with less effort than bagging leaves and importantly, saving the landfills of plastic bags filled with leaves.