f you are reading this from a northern locale, you may be thinking about snow-shoveling, but here in Austin it is time for raking leaves. My Shumard Oaks (Q. shumardii) still have most of their leaves, but I have a good collection on the ground from the Texas Ash (Fraxinus texensis) and the neighbors' Pecans (C. illinoensis). Leaves need to be raked if your yard has turf grass. Even though the grass is dormant, it does still take energy from sunlight for a strong start in the Spring. Leaves deprive grass of this light and weaken it.
So, what to do with those raked leaves? Every year, I see bags of leaves on the curb at this time waiting to be picked up by the City trucks. If this sounds like your house, please reconsider that practice! Leaves are the food that feeds your soil. The routine removal of organic matter from our suburban landscapes leads to dense, dry, sterile soil--hardly a recipe for healthy roots. To keep your plants healthy, try to find a way to reuse those leaves on your property.
At my house, I have a couple of compost piles. I will add my leaves to one of them this year and work the finished compost from the other into my garden, then alternate next year. Once the pile is established, it serves as a great way to recycle vegetable scraps (no meats or fats) from the kitchen, as well--I just dig a hole in the leaf pile, dump in the scrap bucket, bury and mix a little. It cuts down on the volume of trash each week and helps keep the kitchen trash can cleaner and neater. If you want to build a compost pile, there is no need to get fancy--anything from a loop of wire fencing to a box made from old pallets will do the job. You can find all kinds of products to speed up the process, but they are not necessary--everything organic decays eventually. A bigger pile will be easier to get "cooking" if you have the space.
If you are unable or unwilling to start a compost heap, you can still make use of those leaves. Leaf piles make great insulation for outdoor plants that can't take freezing weather. Heap them around sensitive plants, then top with a sheet or blanket during cold snaps. They can also be the beginning of a mulch bed around your trees. If they are from a large-leafed tree and tend to blow away, you might want to buy, rent, or borrow a mulching mower to chop them up a bit.
Mulch is the poor (or cheap) person's tree tonic. By mimicking a forest floor, mulch holds moisture in the soil, moderates temperature extremes, and feeds the microorganisms that drive the soil ecosystem. In Austin, it also helps to make soil nutrients available to plants by acidifying the soil, which breaks down calcium compounds that roots can't absorb. The best mulch for trees is hardwood chips, but leaves play a big part, as well. For more info on mulching, check out the ISA's brochure at their Web site (also a great resource for other consumer information about trees).
If all else fails, just rake the fallen leaves into your flower beds or garden plots. If you don't have active plants there, you can dig the leaves in a bit, or you can just leave them on the soil surface to break down over Winter. As your soil improves, you will attract more worms to help carry the organic material downward. This will take some time for soil that has been routinely stripped of organic matter and fertilized with granular products--your lawn may suffer in the short term, but over time it will be healthier, stronger, and cheaper to maintain. Chemicals are a self-perpetuating cycle, in that they damage the natural system and make plants increasingly dependent on more chemicals. The only way to get beyond them is to break the cycle.
Of course, there are other benefits to leaf piles:
So get out there with a rake and start feeding your plants the natural way.
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