To "Leave the Leaves" or Not?

As anyone who maintains a yard can attest to this time of year, coping with leaves is a tedious certainty in life. Year after year, we work in our yards to make them a sanctuary from the outside world, and year after year, mother nature dumps a million pounds of leaves on our hard work and expects us to do something about it.

One of the more popular movements in sustainable landscaping is to "leave the leaves," which is exactly what it sounds like. The leaves fall, we leave them where they land. Nature intended for deciduous trees to mulch and fertilize themselves by shedding their leaves, leaves which provide habitat for wildlife, and add much-needed biomass to your soil. 

On paper, I love the concept. Anytime we can use nature's existing processes in our landscape, we're reducing our impact upon the land (and usually reducing maintenance and expenses too!) But it's crucial that we use critical thought to know when and where leaving the leaves makes sense, or we might end up unintentionally creating quite the mess for ourselves. 

Why leaving the leaves sometimes isn't a good idea: 

• Unless you live somewhere where those leaves will decompose quickly, they can become a natural sheet mulch, which will smother plants trying to grow underneath them—especially lawns! 
• Slowly decomposing leaves can get slippery, causing safety issues for passers-by.
• Slowly decomposing leaves can introduce harmful bacteria into your landscape if the leaves are coming from a diseased tree

Now, if you don't have concerns about bacteria, and your leaves aren't in a high-traffic area, there are benefits to leaving those leaves be, especially if you're intentionally killing off a high-maintenance, high-resource consuming lawn. Those leaves will create a natural sheet mulch, which will kill the lawn beneath it, and you can plant out a native, low maintenance landscape in the spring!

We have also noticed that some people get carried away when we mention that leaving the leaves may not be a good idea. Often times, those folks will rake up the leaves and send them to the landfill in plastic bags, and that's the last thing we should be doing!

Leaves are a great source of biomass for your landscape and garden, so while you may not want to just "leave them as they fall", you should definitely keep them around to benefit your home's ecosystem!

Leaves can be put to great use around your home landscape, especially by using them for the following:

• A natural mulch for garden and landscape beds
• A great boost to your compost system (just chuck in the whole leaves!)
• An insulating mulch for shrubs and trees
• Pollinator habitat (you determine WHERE to place the leaves)
• Mix them in with soil to build up nutrients and biomass

Should you mulch/shred your leaves first?

To speed up the decomposition process, it's popular to shred the leaves into a fine mulch before spreading it around your yard. While I love this idea, it's important to do it IMMEDIATELY as leaves fall, or well after the weather has warmed again and you see pollinator friends actively buzzing about. Otherwise, you may accidentally send the hibernating pollinators we're trying to protect to an untimely end. For this reason, I very rarely mulch leaves, but do so at your own discretion! 

I'm not trying to pick on anyone: the idea behind "Leave the Leaves" is a great one. Tt just involves a lot more nuance than folks tend to apply to it. Yes, you can, and sometimes (even often!) you should leave those leaves, but by being intentional and deliberate about how we leave the leaves we can make this common, and often tedious, autumn chore benefit our landscapes and gardens in the for years to come!