Many gardeners may be sick of hearing the advice to “leave the leaves.” We know it’s a good idea, but to be honest? It can be hard to figure out how. Clearly, many people don’t know what to do with all those leaves because the EPA estimates that fallen leaves and yard trimmings make up an astonishing 7 percent of the material landfill.
The benefits of leaving leaves on site are so numerous that Kayla Fell, the creative director at the landscape design-build firm Refugia, likens it to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. “Removing leaves reduces the carbon and nutrients in the soil and changes its ability to perform essential ecosystem functions such as stabilization and decreasing runoff,” she says, pointing to a recent University of Maryland study, which found that over time areas where leaves had been left had 21 percent faster decomposition rates and stored up to 32 percent more carbon. In your garden, decomposing leaves can keep soil warm in winter and cool and moist in summer. Along streets, driveways, and walkways that are likely to be salted, a protective layer of leaves can minimize salt damage. (Meanwhile, if leaves are sent to a landfill, fossil fuels are burned transporting them there; and once there, the decomposition process leads to methane, which is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.)
So what can you do to keep all those leaves out of the landfill? We spoke to garden pros who are actively working to leave the leaves in their clients’ and their own yards. Here are their highly specific suggestions for how to leaves the leaves, what to do with them, and when to remove the leaves:
Photography courtesy of Refugia Design Build, except where noted.
1. It’s okay to move them.
“Leaving the leaves does not mean you have to actually leave them where they fall,” says arborist Basil Camu, one of the owners of Leaf & Limb and founder of non-profit Project Pando in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Many people think this is the case, but the phrase means leaving them on site.” When redistributing, try to avoid raking out and disturbing the soil layer and its inhabitants, adds Fell.
2. Start with jut one area.
“Try it out in one, smaller area first—just to get a handle on how it works, and get used to the different look,” says Claire Davis, an ecological garden designer in the Hudson Valley, who has been suggesting this to her clients and the gardeners she coaches. “It can be hard to change, especially for people who are used to the big fall tidying,” she says.
3. Create an out-of-sight leaf pile.
If you have prying neighbors or an HOA to worry about, move leaves to less visible areas, for example from front to rear, suggests Fell. “Make a pile in the corner of your yard, let it rot, and use the leaf compost later to feed your flowers,” says Camu. “Leaf compost is absolute gold, and it’s literally that easy to make: Just let it rot in a pile.”
4. Mulch some of the leaves into your lawn.
You’ll see a lot of advice to just mow leaves right into the lawn, but Chris Hardy, a senior associate at Sasaki, an interdisciplinary design firm based in Boston, cautions against doing this. “When fall leaf drop happens, the density of the leaves is more than lawns can handle,” he says. “If you have a lot of leaves in your lawn, I would capture that in a bag and then spread it in your perennial areas instead.” Hardy also notes that he skips mowing even a light layer of leaves into grass because he likes to let grass grow long in the fall so it can maximize its storage of sugars over the winter. In other seasons, go ahead and mow right over a light leaf litter, but be sure you have a mulching mower (sometimes you need to buy a special blade.)
5. Rake selectively.
To ensure your yard looks cared for, rake the leaves from the most visible or used lawn areas, like the front yard, says Fell, adding. “It’s also important to move leaves from entryways and paths for safety as the weather worsens.”
6. Then put the leaves into garden beds.
You can use the whole leaves in some of your beds as mulch. Hardy suggests, “Any place where you’re putting down mulch as a weed suppressant is a great candidate to leave your leaves whole in place; for instance, under hedges, underneath shrubby landscapes, or in tree pits.” That said, do not lay whole leaves over places where you’re trying to get a perennial understory going.
7. Use caution when covering perennial beds.
In spring, Fell says she tries to remember where new plants or spring ephemerals are and moves leaves aside, so as not to inhibit their growth. Further north, Hardy says he avoids using whole leaves in perennial beds altogether, because when snow presses down on leaves, it can create a tightly-knit layer that can smother smaller perennials and groundcovers. Instead, he shreds leaves and scatters them amongst perennials.
8. Shred, but only if necessary.
“Shredding will speed up the composting process, but it comes at the cost of killing many of the insects and eggs that are living within the leaves,” cautions Camu. If you’re overwhelmed with leaves and shredding is a must, shred selectively, leaving some sections of fallen leaves whole. “If that is what it takes to leave your leaves on site instead of sending them to the landfill, go for it,” says Camu. If you shred, you’re still keeping leaves out of the landfill, sequestering carbon, and improving the soil.
In his own garden, Hardy tried various home-sized shredders and chippers, but says he found the most effective method is to rake dry leaves into a 6-inch deep layer on his asphalt driveway and run a mulching mower over the leaves, capturing the shredded leaves in a bag. “Then I just spread the shredded leaf mulch in the beds,” he says. “They’ll settle down and then in the spring, the bulbs in the perennials don’t have a problem poking through.”
8. Pile up leaves beneath trees.
“Leave leaves beneath trees to make a “soft landing” for beneficial insects to complete their life cycles in your yard,” suggests Fell. You can try to mindfully water the leaves in, getting them just wet enough to help the leaves settle and be less flyaway (they are more likely to blow around than leaves left beneath shrubs). And don’t worry about piling them up over roots. “Leaves will not damage trees like mulch volcanoes,” says Camu. “They don’t have the density/staying power to cause long-term issues.”
9. Put leaves to work to kill your lawn.
Use the growth-suppressing qualities of a thick layer of leaves to your advantage. When we spoke to Doug Tallamy about how to leave the leaves, he suggested raking a thick layer of leaves onto areas where you want to smother grass and create a new bed, like the area around a tree.
10. Amend your raised beds.
If you have raised beds, they’re a great place to leave the leaves, says Katrina Rodabough, a textile artist and author who grows both food and plants for natural dyes in more than a dozen raised beds. “We move piles of leaves to top off our raised garden beds for winter after digging in some chicken coop compost,” says Rodabough. “In spring, when we remove the semi-deteriorated leaves, the beds are virtually weed-free and ready for planting. What’s left of the leaves gets moved to the walking paths between the beds to suppress grasses or into the compost bin.”
11. Cover ’em up.
“If you’re concerned about how that looks, you could add pine straw or wood chips on top,” suggests Camu. Just be careful not to create too thick a covering. With mulch and/or wood chips, you need to be conscious about not creating a dense layer of mulch, which can smother roots, since these materials are much more dense than leaves alone. Laying just a foot or two of mulch along the front of a bed can visually clean it up.
12. Be strategic in city gardens.
Kat Aul Cervoni, the founder of Staghorn NYC Landscape Design, has figured out ways to retain some leaves in her clients’ urban gardens without having the leaf litter overwhelm the small spaces. “We focus on sweeping up leaves from hardscaped spaces like decks, patios, and pathways, and then “process” them by crushing them by hand and spreading them over the top of the existing mulch layer in garden beds,” says Cervoni. “In some cases, we still have to bag up some leaf litter, especially when a garden is small and has a lot of surrounding trees, but we leave as much as we can.”
13. Find someone who does want them.
Community compost operations often need more “browns” to mix in with the food scraps they collect, and dry leaves are ideal for this purpose. Try to contact your local community compost program to see if they’d like to take a bag or two of leaves off of your hands. In this case, make sure you’re bagging leaves only–no sticks, twigs, ivy, or other yard debris. Do not donate leaves if you use chemicals on your lawn.
14. Design places for leaves.
Writing in her blog, Evelyn Hadden, the author of Beautiful No-Mow Yards, goes one step further and says gardeners should design planting beds specifically to take on extra leaves. “Plant tall, robust shrubs in them and plan to add a deep layer of leaves to those beds every year,” she writes. Hadden suggests an island within the lawn planted with native flowering shrubs and a hedge along the driveway as excellent “leaf processing areas” where you can simply rake leaves in.
15. Explain yourself.
Still worried about what the neighbors will think? Another strategy, make a donation to the Xerces Society and choose their Leave the Leaves yard sign as your thank-you gift. Then post it proudly in your yard, so that any passerby who thinks you’re lazy will see that you have left your leaves purposefully.
See also:
- Ask the Expert: Doug Tallamy Explains Why (and How to) Leave the Leaves
- Your First Garden: What You Need to Know About Raking Leaves
- Leave the Leaves—Again: 7 Reasons to Keep Fallen Leaves in the Spring, Too
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