Those red, yellow, and orange leaves may look pretty on the trees; but once they fall onto your lawn, they can become an annoyance. Discover five ways to handle the leaves that tumble into your yard.
- Make Compost
Do you have a compost bin? If so, just add the foliage to it. You've probably already got a lot of summer grass clippings containing nitrogen, and the carbon from the decaying leaves is the perfect complement to those clippings. Use a few inches of old leaves for every inch or so of green leafy yard waste or freshly clipped grass. If there is too much foliage for your own compost bin, check with your city or town to see if there are any community compost stations that could benefit from the yard waste.
- Create Mulch
Leaves are an ideal natural mulch. You can spread them over the flowerbeds that house your perennials, or add them to a garden that features mostly root crops. With plenty of leaf cover, fall root vegetables perform better.
- Save Them for Spring
If you don't have much use for the mulch now, you can chop the foliage and save the dry leaf shreds for spring planting. Add the chopped leaves around your ornamental shrubs, spread them in your vegetable garden, or place them close to the roots of blueberries and other berry bushes. They form a natural barrier to weeds, and they help the soil stay moist.
- Make Leaf Mold
It may sound disgusting, but leaf mold is actually a rich, sweet-smelling type of compost often used in English gardens. Use a plastic bag or wire bin to store the leaves you've collected. Instead of keeping them dry for mulch, ensure that they stay moist. Fungi will start to grow and break them down. After a couple of years, you'll open the bags to find that the leaves have disappeared, and in their place is a mineral-rich, dark compost that you can use to super-charge your soil.
- Dispose of Them
If you really don't want the leaves in your yard, contact your city or county to find out how they recommend handling them. Often, the community specifies certain days for yard waste pickup and certain methods for their disposal; for example, they may suggest that you put the leaves in environmentally friendly paper bags rather than plastic bags.
If you need help figuring out what to do with your leaves, getting started with composting, or maintaining your lawn, contact Kurtz Bros., Inc. We offer a variety of supplies and services to encourage earth-friendly, effective outdoor landscaping and yard waste disposal.