But Mizejewski and other experts say you don’t need a thick layer of leaves all over your garden to support the environment.
Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to invertebrate conservation, says, “Disrupting parts of your garden a little bit is good for the soil, which we need to share this landscape with.” “It’s also very beneficial for some animals.”
Here are some tips on how to manage fallen leaves that you should know this season.
Bagging up leaves and sending them to a landfill is “the worst thing you can do,” Mizejewski said. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, landfills accepted about 10.5 million tons of yard trimmings, including leaves, in 2018, or just over 7% of all discarded waste.
“What happens when these materials are buried in landfills is that they decompose in anaerobic conditions without oxygen, producing methane, which is of course a powerful greenhouse gas,” he says.
To best support wildlife and soil health, experts say leaves should be left where they fall. The lush foliage provides habitat for important pollinating species such as bees, butterflies, and moths during the cold winter months. Other creatures, including amphibians and small mammals such as chipmunks, can also benefit from the shelter provided by foliage.
“This allows them to survive the winter and then potentially come out and pollinate your garden, which helps control other pests,” Black says.
Experts say a light dusting of leaves on your lawn can also be beneficial for your lawn, but too thick a layer can suffocate your lawn. Mizejewski added that fallen leaves can also harbor pests such as mites, so it’s important to follow best practices to protect yourself.
Still, he and other experts said removing all the leaves is not the answer.
“You don’t have to keep them on the grass where they fell, but what we want them to do is keep them on the property,” he said. “Please don’t kick them out.”
If you don’t want to scatter leaves all over your garden, experts suggest taking out a rake and moving them to flower beds, stakes, and the edges of your property. Avoid using gas-powered lawn care equipment, such as leaf blowers, as they produce exhaust fumes and can be noisy.
Consider moving leaves before a serious frost arrives, says Kevin Carpenter Driscoll, environmental coordinator for the City of Greenbelt, Maryland. By the time it starts to get cold, the leaf layers may already be filled with wildlife hunkering down for the winter. Carpenter-Driscoll said raking leaves can be a nuisance.
The leaves act as a mulch and weed suppressant in the spring. Mizejewski recommends not removing leaves from the base of trees and shrubs.
“They fall around the roots of plants, where they do things like suppress weeds and retain moisture in the soil, before slowly decomposing into compost and returning nutrients directly to the roots of the plants. ” he said. “It’s a lot like mulch and fertilizer.”
For garden beds, Mizejewski suggests arranging the leaves to form a layer about 3 to 5 inches deep around the plant. If you’re worried about leaves blowing into your garden, try dampening the leaves a little.
If you have too many leaves, another option is to use a mulch mower to shred the leaves. This will speed up the decomposition of the leaves. But experts say it’s best to avoid cutting back all the foliage and eliminating shelter for wildlife.
Mizejewski said leaves are a useful addition to a compost pile. You can create a large pile of fallen leaves somewhere on your property to create compost that naturally turns into leaf mulch. The smaller the leaf clippings, the faster they will compost.
Additionally, some municipalities collect leaves for composting. According to an EPA analysis, an estimated 22.3 million tons of yard trimmings were composted or mulched with wood chips in 2018, for a composting rate of 63 percent.
Experts say taking steps to leave fallen leaves around your yard in the fall is just one part of a larger effort to move away from manicured lawns, which are a blind spot for many species. It said they provide little habitat or nutrients for wildlife and require many resources, including: Fertilizer to maintain.
“Ideally, we want to have this culture-changing effect where people start to re-evaluate the way they view and interact with their environments and gardens,” Carpenter-Driscoll said. Groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and the Xerces Society have launched public education campaigns to encourage people to transition to more natural gardens with native plants. This year, the National Wildlife Federation has designated October as National Leaf Leaving Month.
Carpenter-Driscoll said even simple changes like not removing all the leaves can have a noticeable impact.
“You’ll see a greater variety of species in your garden,” he said. “Take your time and think, ‘Okay, what are we not seeing before?’ How has the soil changed compared to before? There are visible changes.”