What to Do With Dead Leaves

by Jordan Laio for Networx

It’s the middle of January, and here in Southern California, a few of our ornamental trees are changing colors and others are dropping their leaves. Interestingly, last week I saw a woman awkwardly raking leaves with one hand and talking on her cell phone with the other. Quite the Los Angeles moment. Well, what can you do with all those leaves?

Of course, what most people do is rake ‘em up and ship ‘em out. Their municipality will either take them to the dump, where the leaves will turn into methane gas as they decompose, or they will be composted and redistributed. The latter option is good, but you can do better.

Compost

The very best thing you can do is to compost your leaves. If left to their own devices in a natural ecosystem, leaves become rich humus. And, if you let them, they’ll turn into a rich compost for your garden. All you have to do is let time work its magic.

When using leaves as compost, it’s important that they’re dry. Otherwise, unless they’re supplemented with a dry material like straw or sawdust, your compost will be too wet and will just rot. Generally, the dry element in compost is more difficult to come by than all the wet food scraps and grass clippings, so dry leaves can be a big boon for backyard composters.

Use as Mulch

You can also use leaves as mulch. They are not as long-lasting as, say, wood mulch, but they will certainly fulfill their natural role as ground cover, suppressing weeds, buffering the soil and plant roots from temperature variances, and releasing nutrients as they decompose. They also increase the activity of important microorganisms in the soil. If you take this route and if your leaves are large, it’s a good idea to run them through a leaf-shredder or to crunch them by hand a bit. Use this mulch around the base of trees and over open soil in your garden or yard.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Alyssa R.

5:57PM PDT on Jul 30, 2011

nice

send a green star

Eternal G.

6:28PM PST on Feb 20, 2011

Mulch!!

Past Member .

5:51AM PST on Feb 6, 2011

thulx

Oana C.

12:00AM PST on Feb 1, 2011

great infos!

Laura M.

6:56AM PST on Jan 25, 2011

We use them in hugelkultur. We started with no real soil here. It was all bulldozed away. Hugelkultur has helped us create working garden beds.

BROOKE W.

8:22PM PST on Jan 24, 2011

I JUST RUN OVER THEM W THE LAWNMOWER*FREE FERTILIZER*I PUT RED CEDAR CHIP*S AROUND MY TREE*S*I LV 2 WORK IN THE YARD & MY GARDEN*VERY THERAPUTIC & RELAXING*BROOKE W*HELSINKI*FINLAND

Dana W.

11:22AM PST on Jan 24, 2011

Thank you for the article. Our city has a weekly pickup for yard debris that is composted and sold by the bag to the public.

Lika S.

1:29AM PST on Jan 24, 2011

Cool. I've been using them for compost anyway, because I didn't like the idea of having to put them in a dump site. :)

Ireven G.

2:53PM PST on Jan 21, 2011

let them back to earth

Mignone B.

12:55PM PST on Jan 20, 2011

thanks for the article