Leaving well enough Alone
December is almost here! The last of the leaves have fallen, and hopefully have been composted or ground up into mulch to snuggle the garden in for the winter. I took a new tack this year with the sycamore leaves in the front yard. It seems that every year no matter how well I clean out my landscaping of excess leaves- by spring, more have blown in and I have another big job in the spring removing the extras. I never really clean the beds out totally, feeling that those leaves will all break down and add organic matter to my very sandy soil as they also help to keep the moisture from evaporating. This year- I’m going to leave the leaves in the beds and just mow over the ones on the lawn and leave them lay. My theory is- my landscape can only hold so many leaves- when it is full- the excess will blow over to somebody else’s yard, and I will still have the same amount of leaves in my landscape as I’ve had every other spring- no more, no less. I’ll let you know how that works out.
Now this might not be a good idea in every yard- I have sycamore leaves, nearly every house on my street has a sycamore tree, so the majority of the leaves blowing around out there all winter are sycamores. Huge thick and fluffy- they absolutely will not mat together in a soggy clump like maple leaves do, nor do they just crumble up like a lot of other leaves do. Even when shredded up into quarter sized pieces, they take a year or more to break down- thus they make an excellent mulch for landscaping. Now if I had a maple tree on a street full of maples, the leaves would smother my garden and lawn if I left them piled up all winter, but they wouldn’t blow around all winter either having fallen all at once, been raked up, collected and mulched or composted.
I read a recent study in the newspaper that showed that ground up maple leaf mulch on lawns acted as an herbicide specific to dandelions and it’s effectiveness varied from variety to variety. Other studies have shown that leaf mulch is quite beneficial to lawns, cutting the need for fertilizer. If you’ve been to my garden, you know I’m not a huge fan of lawns, to me they just serve as a place to walk on to get from one garden to another, and make a nice foreground for the real stars of the show, the flowers! I put very little effort into my lawn- I fertilize it, and water it to keep it green, mow it and that’s about it. Does it have weeds? Absolutely! Do I care? Nope. They are green and I mow them. I’m thinking that this nice layer of leaf mulch on my lawn will help to keep more moisture in the soil, especially over the winter, and add nutrients to the soil as well, so I’m hoping I won’t have to fertilize as much.
Fall was lovely with it’s changing colors and drifting leaves, and I’ve been about the busy-ness of a bit of fall clean-up, removing frosted leaves, leaving attractive hosta seed heads and Sedum Autumn Joy flower stalks to catch the snow, arranging pots of various evergreen boughs to decorate visible areas on porches and decks, rearranging outdoor furniture for use on a warm winter day, and festively decorating the gazebo for winter celebrations with garland and twinkling lights. All during November I keep an eye peeled for discarded evergreen boughs, berried branches, and pretty colored twigs and throw them in the back of my car to fill out my pots. Add a couple of weather worthy bows, and the arrangement looks wonderful until spring. I even haul out a couple of old sleds to prop up by the doors, festoon them with bows and some signage and snowmen. Winter is long- no need to look out at an unattractive expanse of brown if we fail to get a lovely blanket of white.
I hope during the past year you have worked on planning for some fall and winter color in your garden to truly extend the beauty of gardening for all seasons- maybe added some evergreens, plants with lovely fall color or seedstalks and flowers that look great all winter, or some tall grasses to catch the snow. Add some seasonal decor and you have a pretty picture to look out at while you sip a cup of hot cocoa and mark up the pages of the seed and plant catalogues that will be arriving soon.
See you in the Garden!
Oh, I was meant to read this article on your blog! We had to cut down some beautiful oaks and I am trying to convince my husband that we should plant maple trees in their place. When I give him the dandelion herbicide info., I am sure that will clinch it!
Thanks!