Leave those leaves
Ben Conway
Head Gardener Ayrlies Gardens and Wetlands
Autumn is a favourite time of year not just for the visual feast of rich colour and those beautiful drawn-out sunsets, but for the prospect of all the organic matter that is about to become available. It is this time of year I start to plan where leaves will live out there second and third lives.
Leaves are a free resource, a carbon free resource. I know that doesn't sound right as they contain loads of carbon, but as far as the carbon footprint of getting leaves to your property, versus a load of conditioned compost trucked in, they are carbon free. Leaves are a clean weed free resource, minus a few acorns, liquid amber seed pods or stones inevitability gathered during the raking and collection process.
Leaves have been helping build soil structure, topsoil and humus since the day the first leaf hit the ground.
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Worms drag the leaves down into the soil, where micro-organism's get to work decomposing the different layers of carbon and turn it into a beautiful friable material.
Leaves that fall to the ground help protect the soil from the impact of heavy rain. They insulate the soil and help stop erosion. Where possible leaf them where they fall. Of course, some precious plants may need to be rescued from too much of a good thing. Maybe it's time to rethink where you're trying to grow certain smaller plants and move them out of a heavy leaf fall zone.
Dry leaves are what I like to refer to as a "free-range organic matter", a dynamic material, moving freely with the wind from one side of your courtyard to the other. But with the addition of water, they normally huddle together and accumulate in corners or in drains and gutters. Leaves on hard surfaces, leaves on gravel roads being driven into the aggerate , leaves blocking drains and leaves left on lawns starving the grass of light. These are the lost leaves, the leaves that haven't found where they are going to live out the rest of their lives.
These leaves that should not be left. They are the real resource that can be redirected into creative and cost saving solutions. It is just a matter of looking at them in a different way. All of a sudden you have cubic meters of a relatively uniform material at your disposal, just itching to be used as a mulch around new plantings or used to extend that garden bed with a funny edge you have always wanted to rectify.
To sum up!
First life of a leaf: carbon capturing solar panel providing energy to the tree, providing shade to the ground and different plants and biodiversity below the canopy.
Second life of a leaf: providing a weed suppressing mulch which looks very natural and provides food for micro-organisms, nutrients and water retention.
Third life of a leaf: humus , stable carbon in the in soil.
It's not too late to go and harvest some "free-range organic matter" I'm sure you will find some!