Six Smart Reasons to Leave the Autumn Leaves

Six Smart Reasons to Leave the Autumn Leaves

Autumn is in full swing. No matter where you live in North America, gardeners are watching leaves falling as temperatures cool. Even if you don’t have a deciduous forest in your backyard, you still have bare tree branches, bushes going dormant, perennial plants dying back, and lawns turning brown.  You can’t leave all the leaves on the lawn; that wouldn’t make for a healthy lawn come spring.  But, you don’t have to rake up every single leaf and over-tidy the garden. And you don’t want to send those raked up leaves to the dumpster either. 

There are plenty of reasons not to over-tidy when preparing your garden for winter, and here are (6) of them:

1.    Create Winter Landscape Interest

When you look out on your backyard on a winter’s day, the expanse of white landscape need not be bleak. Instead it can be wonderfully serene, still, and punctuated by the appearance of seedpods left standing. Sedums are some of those plants that add visual interest, as well as tall grasses, and even the dried brown seeds on bushes such as lilacs. Fallen tree branches and hollow logs that stand out like dark sentinels against the white, can leave us to wondering as we gaze out our windows what wildlife might be hunkered down for protection there.

2.      Consider Wildlife

Ice Covered Berries, Photo from womanseyeview.me

There are beneficial insects, such as bees, butterflies and ladybugs, that need to overwinter in your yard, sometimes in the very leaf litter you were about to rake up and throw away. More and more gardeners are becoming aware that their yards are home to an entire world of critters besides themselves. The web of life is interwoven on so many levels, with insects relying on protection during cold winter months in the thickets of snow-covered branches, in hollowed logs, under the lowest branches of bushes, or even under peeling bark high up in tall trees. Some of these insects provide essential food for birds in the wintertime when insects are scarce.

Native bees are among those insects seeking protection. Some spend the winter as larvae burrowed into the ground. Others hide in the stems of grasses or inside tree hollows. Then there are pest-eating insects like ladybugs, who hibernate in the winter. If you leave them a comfortable place to sleep, they will be there for you first thing in spring when they can go to work right away policing your garden for pests.

Not all butterflies migrate to warmer climes in winter, and those that stay can hide in leaf clutter that the responsible gardener has thoughtfully left alone. Some survive as caterpillars hidden in their host plants; they will stay hidden there until spring comes to warm them up.

You can see how fragile the web of life is out there in your backyard, and how we must be very vigilant not to destroy it, for the continued health of the garden.

3.      Making Homes for Bird Friends

Eastern Bluebirds in the Snow

Of all the birds that have visited your feeders throughout the year, some do not migrate south.  Instead they choose to stay on and make a go of it. They find refuge in tree cavities and under bushes, eating winter berries and what insects they can find. Some birds are insect-eating birds that cannot survive on feeder seeds alone. Gardeners welcome wrens, nuthatches, pheobes, bluebirds, titmice, as they consume many of the insects and caterpillar pests that would otherwise wreak havoc on your spring garden. These birds can find insects hibernating in the natural habitat you have left for them by not tidying up too much.

4.      Caring for the Rose and Perennial Gardens

A heavy layer of leaf mulch is a perfect way to protect roses from freezing temps. Snow is a great insulation, keeping perennial beds sheltered from frigid, biting winds that would harm soft perennial plants.  If you live in an area that freezes but gets little to no snow, it is especially important to have leaf mulch to pack into your garden beds. Caution: Some perennials will suffer from rot if too much leaf litter is piled up against them, so be aware of which plants you are mulching.

      5.  Saving Essential Nutrients for Next Year’s Lawn

Photo AP

Your lawn can benefit from the many nutrients found in that leaf litter, as well. So, too, can the rest of your garden. Leaf mulch also cuts down on weeds and stabilizes soil temperatures. To do this, instead of raking up leaves, run them over with your lawnmower and save them in piles. You can store them in plastic bags or bins made of chicken wire.

     6.   Planning the Spring Vegetable Garden

Photo: Hannah O'Leary / OSU Extension Service

Come spring, you will need compost for your vegetable garden.  Compost consists of not just food scraps. A large bulk of it can be decaying leaf litter mixed with manure.  Ideally, for every gallon bucket of kitchen scraps and grass clippings you toss into the pile, you should have three gallon buckets of fall leaves or straw to cover it with.

Mulch vegetable beds with a thick (6-inch) layer of leaves. Make a blanket of oak leaves to cover fallow vegetable beds in the fall. This will protect the bare soil from hard rainstorms. Slowly over the winter months leaves will break down, to be turned back into the soil come spring.

Composting creates a sort of semi-artificial nutrient cycle. Yes, the nutrients are eventually recycled back into the soil, but instead of allowing plant and animal waste to sit around and naturally decompose wherever it falls, composting makes all the decomposition take place in one spot. 

~ Instead of all that work tidying up the garden this autumn, hope you enjoy instead walks through the backyard with your camera, perhaps looking for wildlife in hiding or photographing the artful arrangement of dried plants that nature has waiting for you.