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 Put fall leaves to work in your landscape
improving your soil, reducing maintenance, and creating winter homes
for toads, frogs, and beneficial insects. Mow over the leaves that
land on the lawn. It may take a couple passes but once the fall
leaves are the size of a quarter you can leave them on the lawn to
add organic matter and nutrients to the soil.
Or mow, bag and add the shredded leaves to annual flowers or
vegetable gardens. Dig several inches of shredded leaves into the
top 8 to 12 inches of garden soil. The leaves will decompose over
winter, adding organic matter to the soil. Still more leaves; add
them to the compost pile. Mixing this carbon rich plant debris to
greens like plant-based kitchen scraps, manure, and worm castings
makes for great compost.
Use leaves as mulch on the soil around the base of perennials. They
suppress weeds, conserve moisture, insulate the roots and add
organic matter to the soil as they decompose. Leaves also provide
winter homes and insulation for insects, toads and frogs that
overwinter in leaf litter or just below the soil surface.
Leave healthy perennials stand for winter. They add winter interest
to the landscape, provide homes for many beneficial insects and the
seeds of Rudbeckia, coneflower, liatris, and others provide food for
the birds. These winged visitors add welcome color and motion to the
often, gray days of winter.
Take time to remove any dead, damaged and diseased stems, and
branches. Disinfect your tools between cuts to reduce the risk of
spreading disease to healthy plants. Clean tools with a spray
disinfectant or 70% alcohol between cuts to manage disease organisms
without harming your tools. Refresh mulch
around trees and shrubs. Maintaining a three-inch layer helps
conserve moisture, insulates the roots from temperature extremes,
reduces competition from the lawn for water and nutrients and
improves the soil as it decomposes. Pull mulch away from the trunk
of trees and stems of shrubs. Piling mulch over these can lead to
rot, decline and early death of the plants.
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Help your lawn recover from the stresses of summer
and prepare for winter with fall fertilization. University research
found fall fertilization is most beneficial for home lawns. Fall
fertilization encourages deep roots and denser growth that is better
able to compete with weeds and tolerate disease and insect pests.
Always sweep grass clippings and chemicals off walks and drives and
back into the lawn where they belong. This simple step keeps
unwanted nutrients out of waterways and eventually our drinking
water.
Add some spring color by planting daffodils, grape hyacinths,
tulips, and other spring flowering bulbs this fall. It is also a
good time to add trees, shrubs, and perennials to the landscape. The
soil is warm and air cool, making it less stressful for plants to
adjust to their new home. Mulch new plantings and water thoroughly
whenever the top few inches of soil are crumbly and moist. Continue
watering new and existing plantings as needed until the ground
freezes.
Once the garden is prepared for winter, you can put away the hoses
and garden tools, break out the snow shovels and wait for spring to
arrive.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including
The Midwest Gardener’s Handbook and Small Space Gardening. She hosts
The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” DVD series and the
nationally-syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program.
Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms
magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
[Photo courtesy of Pasquesi Home and
Gardens] |
