Thursday, October 23, 2014

Mow Those Leaves!

My husband mulching leaves our in the woodland.
For all of those gardeners who have wondered, "What can I do with all of my leaves besides send them to the landfill or municipality?"

It should be obvious that it is the leaf litter in the forest that helps to supports growth of shade plants. But less known is that there is also a lot of new research that shows how leaves also benefit you lawn. For more explanation of this method, see my old post on mowing your leaves in fall.
White oaks and our beech covered in gold this month.
The red holly berries appeared this month as well as a nice contrast to the golden leaves.

 If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoying looking through my fall jobs series from a a few years ago...

Fall Gardening Tasks Series:

#1 Planting Lavender in wet climates

#2 New perennials for fall planting

#3 Thin Perennial Seedlings

#4 Bring in the tender plants

#5 Mowing leaves into Turf 

# 6 Planting Spring Bulbs

# 7 Edging and Removing Turf

#8 Quick Winter Perennial Pot Storage

#9 Core Aeration of Lawn in the Fall

7 comments:

  1. Magnificent autumnal colors. When the sun shines, it is even more beautiful.
    Leaves are recycled for the garden?
    Good evening.

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  2. Lovely photos! We mow many of our leaves into the lawn. Others we compost, use as mulch, and/or place in piles in the woods where they decompose. Very good advice. Sometimes we don't fully realize the riches we have readily available, free of charge. :)

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  3. Gorgeous fall pictures, Julie. We mow the leaves too. I'm enjoying your Fall Gardening Tasks Series. Still haven't planted my 200 bulbs, yet -- but don't have has many as you had. P. x

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  4. Yes, we mow, mulch, and collect our leaves. They cover the gardens for the winter, fill the compost bins to over-brimming, and some get left on the lawn. Mother Nature loves to mock my husband by blowing down more leaves even as he is out there mowing!

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  5. I was just listening to an "All Things Plants" podcast: https://allthingsplants.com/ideas/view/dave/2102/ATP-Podcast-72-Heading-into-Fall/, where they talk about driving around and actually collecting bags of leaves from curbsides for their gardens! :)

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  6. I've just been reading Charles Dowding who advises a 'no dig' approach to gardening, so will be using my leaf litter this year to smother out weeds on fallow areas of my plot. As they rot down, they'll enrich the soil and in the meantime, they'll block out the light for the weeds, thus stopping them growing and seeding more evil offspring…! Well that's the theory anyway. Will keep you posted on results!

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  7. I leave many of the leaves in the beds as mulch, and they never seem to harm the plants or bulbs. The leaves on the lawn we mow and use as mulch on the veg beds...since we use no chemicals they are safe as mulch.

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