Autumn Leaves are Beautiful, Annoying and Beneficial!

I have a love/hate relationship with falling leaves.  I love autumn and the vivid colors of changing leaves – brilliant red, orange, gold and maroon. But, as part of the “circle of life,” these beautiful, dying leaves begin falling to the ground, covering my lawn, sidewalk, garden beds, pond and patio furniture. The annoying part, of course, is raking up thousands of leaves while more keep falling as quickly as I can rake them.

I have learned to appreciate fallen leaves and understand how beneficial they are to me and my garden.  Raking leaves is good for my body and provides great aerobic exercise while I am tidying up my garden space. Raking leaves vigorously for 20 minutes is the equivalent of running for one mile!  Raking leaves is considered a moderate exercise activity, burns about 300 calories per hour and provides a full body workout. It’s wonderful to be outside in the fresh fall air and burning calories.  And there are few things more fun for young children then jumping into piles of fallen leaves.

Fallen leaves are a good source of organic matter that can benefit your garden but a thick carpet of leaves left on your plants, in planting beds or on the lawn can create a barrier that prevents oxygen, sunlight and moisture from reaching your plants. As it rains, a leaf mat develops, inhibiting sunlight, trapping water, and encouraging fungal diseases and insects. A heavy blanket of leaves left on the grass can smother even a healthy lawn in a few months. It is best to rake leaves off your plants, out of your beds and off the lawn. But don’t burn or discard the leaves – use them to enhance your garden soil.

My husband, Dan, uses a mulching lawn mower that shreds leaves as it picks them up. The shredded leaves are then placed in our garden beds as mulch. The benefits of using shredded leaves as mulch include, cutting down on weeds, protecting your plants from temperature extremes, keeping moisture in the soil and adding nutrients as the leaves decompose. We also dump some of the leaves into our compost bins where they quickly decompose over the winter and become compost – that wonderful soil amendment we gardeners call “black gold.” But I’ll save a discussion on composting for another time.

After the heavy rain of the past few days, I have thousands more leaves in my yard. I’ll be out this weekend raking, mulching, dumping them in the compost bin and getting exercise at the same time.  Hope you’ll join me outside!