Susan Barton: A layer of leaves on the yard will omit light, which would be detrimental to the yard. When the leaves fall, either rake them up or chop them up with a lawn mower so they are finer and can sort down in through the lawn blades. If they fall in a landscape bed, or under trees, shrubs and bigger plants, its great to simply leave the leaves without mulching them.
Lots of bugs invest the winter season in leaf litter. When you fertilize in the spring, your turf is growing leaves at that point, so youre actually simply triggering the grass to grow more and grow much faster, and you will need to trim more typically.
Can leaves on a landscaped property ever be left as they are, or should they always be mulched?
Susan Barton: A layer of leaves on the lawn will omit light, which would be detrimental to the yard. When the leaves fall, either rake them up or chop them up with a yard mower so they are finer and can sort down in through the lawn blades. If they fall in a landscape bed, or under trees, shrubs and bigger plants, its great to simply leave the leaves without mulching them.
What are the benefits of mulching leaves rather than eliminating them?
Susan Barton: The leaves include nutrients, and they also are a source of raw material. So if you enable the leaves to return into the landscape, you are supplying nutrients for the plants to take up, and you are offering natural matter that will improve the soil structure.
If you think of forest, where leaves simply naturally go back to the soil and decay every year, its some of the wealthiest soil we have. By permitting that to occur in your landscape beds, youre getting the exact same benefits.
What can keep leaves from blowing from one home to another?
Susan Barton: Chopping them up will significantly reduce the blowing of the leaves. Make them smaller sized by either mowing over the leaves where they fall in the yard, or raking them into piles and after that mowing them.
There are likewise leaf vacuums that vacuum, chop up and put the leaves in a bag. Then you spread out the leaves on your landscape beds.
What are the ecological benefits of not getting rid of the leaves?
Susan Barton: If you rake up your leaves, put them in a black plastic bag and have them removed to a landfill, then they never get to break down and return those nutrients and organic matter back to the soil. Rather, youre taking what could be a resource and making it an issue.
Many pests invest the winter season in leaf litter. And a lot of individuals might not desire bugs in their landscape, however only about 2% of all the bugs in the world are considered bugs.
By allowing the insects to overwinter in the leaf litter, youre supporting bird populations and, of course, pollinators, which assist plants produce seeds that can establish into brand-new plants.
When should people fertilize yards?
Susan Barton: In the fall, since that is when turf yard is primarily growing roots and youre promoting the type of yard development that makes a healthy, thick lawn. When you fertilize in the spring, your lawn is growing leaves at that point, so youre truly just causing the yard to grow more and grow much faster, and you will need to cut more often. So it really does not make sense to fertilize in the spring.
Also, when you slice up the leaves in the fall, you are really also fertilizing in the fall since youre putting those sliced up leaves back into the soil. However its an excellent concept to include some additional fertilizer besides just the leaf litter.
How can people get the most out of their yards and make their landscaping more ecologically friendly?
Susan Barton: The suburban standard is to have a yard with some ornamental plants around the home, or at the end of the driveway. I think its an excellent idea to sort of flip that paradigm and style locations of the yard that offer for play and gathering spaces, and then figure out what everything else can be.
Its simply a different way of believing about the landscape, and much more ecologically sensitive. It will offer all kinds of environment services, whether its much better water seepage or better air quality. If we think of pulling co2 out of the air, were doing it a lot more if weve got a ground cover, a shrub layer, a small tree layer and a big tree layer than we are if we have just a yard.
See the complete interview to hear more.
SciLine is a totally free service based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science that assists journalists consist of scientific proof and experts in their newspaper article.
Composed by Susan Barton, Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware.
Adjusted from a post initially published in The Conversation.
All those leaves go to squander when you bag them for the landfill.
Autumn is the season to look at beautiful leaves of gold, orange and yellow as they flutter from the trees and fall on our lawns– but then, of course, comes the laborious task of raking them up and trying to decide what to do with them. SciLine spoke with Susan Barton, a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, who states taking a lazy technique is actually a win for your garden and the animals that live there.
Dr. Susan Barton talks about fall yard care.
Below are some highlights from the interview. Answers have actually been modified for brevity and clarity.