Garden Gold of Autumn Leaves

Autumn leaves are considered as garden gold. This garden gold of fallen leaves, if distributed properly makes a rich soil for your gardens and lawn. A pile of leaves that is left on the lawn over the winter can smother it and when the beautiful colors fade it does not give off an appealing appearance. If they are left on porches and sidewalks they can become very slippery and unsafe.

If you walk on the floor of a forest, which is usually free of grass, which has an accumulation of fallen leaves you will find that it is light and spongy. It has a deep layer of humus that many gardeners would love to be able to achieve. Year after year, the leaves usually lie where they have fallen and get broken down by micro-organisms that compost in place, creating deep, rich, plant nourishing, and water-retaining soil. The leaves not only decompose but they fertilize and enrich the soil with rich organic matter. They could possibly provide shelter to butterflies or larvae.  

Tree leaves do not have large amounts of nitrogen but are affluent in minerals which will be returned back to the soil during decomposition. Besides for enriching the lawns, leaves can be used as mulch in vegetable gardens during the winter and can be left there for the months you are not using the garden, it will simply improve the soil. They also help protect the garden from compacting from a heavy amount of winter rain and at the same time it will suppress the growth of weeds. Using mulch will also help control the soil temperature.

The outdoor gold of the leaves can also be used as mulch around trees and shrubs or flower gardens during the winter. They can be composted with other garden or kitchen waste or alone. One way to avoid smothering the grass would be to use a mulching mower to shred the leaves and leave them in place. The mulching mower creates smaller particles which will break down quicker, blocking any sunlight for a much shorter period of time.

Some gardeners have decided to start using gold foliage in their landscape instead of depending on flowers for the added color; it is much easier and low maintenance. Planting gold in a garden is simply a design choice. The colorful fall leaves are like having gold nuggets in the garden because they are very useful. Instead of using a mulching mower you can try using your regular mower over the leaves several times to shred them small enough so they filter down to the soil of the lawn. If you have an enormous amount of leaves just rake them and place them under the shrubs and bushes. A nice blanket of leaves under those shrubs will keep the soil in place so the feeder roots will not be exposed. That blanket not only keeps winter soil warmer but cools the soil in the summer.

If you have a limited supply of leaves, the first place to rake them would be beneath mountain laurels, rhododendrons, azaleas, and blueberries; these shrubs will benefit the most. After mulching the shrubs, the next place would be the perennial flowers; the benefits are the same as for shrubs and it will prevent soil heaving from freezing and thawing. You can use a few inches of the leaves for the flower bed which will settle to about an inch by the time spring rolls around. Your vegetable gardens and annual flower beds will also benefit because there will not be any seeds from any weeds.

There is a disadvantage of a garden gold blanket, or any organic mulch, on the vegetable garden and annual flower garden is that these mulches will insulate the ground delaying a spring warm-up.  You can eliminate the problem by raking off the mulch just before springs arrives, dig the garden gold into the soil instead of using it for mulch, or you can delay your spring planting.