Hi Rita, That's a great idea and good for the environment too. I also use leaves, and I have plenty in my yard. My son bought me a leaf shredder so I start getting and shredding the leaves as soon as they come down. then I store them in large black bags until we have a few frosts. A local daylily garden uses shredded leaves and pine needles ( they sell Christmas trees ) That's where I got the idea. How much do you cover? And what do you do in the spring? I covered mine last year but in the spring I raked up alot of the leaves in the spring. Wasn't sure what to do. I had put several inches on. Do you leave all the DL foliage on too. I replied on another posting, but haven't had an answer to a question.. I'm new to this forum and was wondering what DH stood for. I have a few ideas by the way it's used but I really don't know. I've gained alot of info from all of your postings. Thanks Cindy from Ohio.

I do not actually cover the daylilies, at least I try not to. I guess some leaves might blow over them later. But I am doing this while they all have leaves so its very easy to mulch around them. The leaves touch the plants, none of this keep the mulch away from the crowns that some people believe in.

Late last fall I did the garden beds for my terrace garden were I have a daylily garden now. When it was done (in November) I simply piled on a very thick later of bagged leaves on top of the ground and left it for winter. I put lots more than I would have if I was going around small plants like daylilies. In the spring the leaves were still there, very thick and I just moved or made a hole in the matted leaf mulch and planted my daylilies. Left the rest. It lasted all summer but since fall, all the leaf mulch there is totally gone. Broken down into compost and earthworm castings by all the earthworms that just love it here.

I leave all my daylily folliage until spring although I do pull dried flower stalks in the fall or whenever they are brown and easily pull out. Sometimes I don't like the stalks and just cut them down when they are green as soon as the flowers are done.

With the dormants there is no problems, the folliage just become compost for the garden and dries up and dissapears. With the evergreens when they start growing in the spring I like to pull the old musched up leaves away and throw them out so that the new leaves can grow. Sometimes if you don't do this, the new leaves can get "stuck". No problem, if you see that the leaves are having problems growing out, simply pull away the old folliage.

Cindy: DH stands for Dear Husband.

I'm also leaving the dead foliage on this year and will do spring clean-up when the time comes. I haven't tried the leaves mulch yet but I have a feeling next year may be the year to start. Is there any type of leaf that would be unhealthy to put around dls?

Julia

Julia, Thanks so much for the terminology info. That's really sweet. I'm glad to know, afterall for a gardener I thought it might be dead head!!! But when I saw it being used I just didn't think that could be it. I have used shredded leaves on other perennials and I have been told to avoid oak leaves as they are more acidic.

Thanks again Cindy

This is a short story from last year. We happily collected
the leaves daily from our yard and next door (good friends). We had planned to shred the leaves as they kept falling and mulch in our garden in front of the house. We went out one morning after a windy night and darned if those unshredded leaves hadn't filled in between all the DLs and assorted perineals (sp). Neatest job you ever saw but, we wanted the mulch to break down over the winter.

No luck, but we have laughed about it a lot--neighbors laughed with us.

Kay-phal

Rita, Thanks Now I am planning on putting in a new flower bed this spring for all the dl that I want due to looking at everyones pics. I really love blue flowers and the Lambertsons are beautiful. I would not have know about them if it weren't for this forum. So should I just pile on the leaves in the new area or do I need to remove the grass before I put the leaves down? Thanks cindy

Oh, you can do this the easy way. Out line the area you wish the bed to be. Clothes line works great! Cut grass short as you can. Put down and spead newspapers at about 6-10 sheets thick and pile leaves directly on top. I find that the bagged leaves I get work best (rather than ones not previously bagged) because the bagging tends to get them to stick together. Especially if they were bagged wet or with some moisture.

The newspaper smothers the grass. By the spring it should be all done or if there is some left it is soft and falling apart. Easy to dig thru to plant.

Pile the leaves on nice and thick. I find that 12 inches of leaves packs down to 4 inches or less come spring. Do not remove leaves come spring, scape a spot aside or dig hole and just plant daylilies directly in bed.

Hi Rita
I've been mulching with shredded leaves the 10 years that I'm living in this house. We usually go around to different areas in the neighborhood and get bags of leaves from others and I also ask neighbors for their leaves too. If they are not shredded I will run over them with the lawnmower. Once all the beds are covered I add what's left over into my compost bins, if there are still bags left, they sit on the side of the yard til spring or to be used during the summer. The only drawback I have found is MICE like to chew holes in the bags and go inside and nest. I have a terrible phobia about them, and just can't deal with seeing them, YUCK!!!

I'm lucky in the sense that I can get lots of cardboard from around here to start a new bed, for the dl's I'm hoping to order during the winter, so lasagna gardening is a definite go for me. One thing that I have found in the years I'm doing this is that the shredded leaves will not blow around as much as unshredded ones.

Alberta

All my new beds here have been "lasagna" beds. I'd read up on them over on the composting forum (which I highly recommend you all visit -- lots of great info over there).

To make the beds, I started by putting down wet cardboard. To wet, I soaked in a wheelbarrow full of water. I also removed all tapes and any staples BTW. Because I wanted to make curved beds, I used wet newspaper sheets for the curved areas - easier to manipulate into shapes than cardboard. I generally use app. 4 to 6 sheets.

As Rita said, the newspaper (and/or cardboard) smothers what's growing underneath. Also, earthworms LOVE the cardboard, so they'll start eating. Result = great stuff for the soil!

On top of the cardboard/newspapers goes....well, basically anything that can be composted. Which is to say, so many organic materials. I dump the contents of the kitchen compost bucket, contents of our coffee pot, floor sweepings, contents of vacuum bag, paper towel and toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes, paper towels (unless they have some kind of cleaning product on them), grass clippings if I have some too tall to leave on the grass, garden cleanup stuff, crumbled peanut shells, shredded junk mail, tea bags, crumbled egg shells (some people clean out the shells, bake them to kill pathogens, then save them til spring, as birds eat the crumbled shells to get needed calcium)....

Also, I have some aged mushroom soil and of course aged or nearly aged compost from my own piles. Also, I had bags of composted manure, which I used as well.

like Rita, dried leaves of course. We had leaves from our trees piled miles high for a few weeks on our patio. I wanted them nicely dried out and crispy. And then I crumbled them as fine as possible. Put those in the beds, too.

My compost piles contain even more things, which I wouldn't necessarily put in a relatively shallow lasagna bed. Things like fish heads, shrimp and crab shells, chicken bones, etc.

We just started a new, enormous, wedge-shaped bed yesterday. So far, it's just carboard/newspaper + leaves + some coffee grounds. But starting today, I'll be adding to the bed until it's piled high with material. Then, I'll just let it set there over the winter. Come spring, I'll be planting in it like crazy.

Speaking of coffee grounds, I HIGHLY recommend you start making runs to Starbucks, which has its corporate-sponsored Grounds for Gardens program. They leave bags of used grounds (with the coffee filters, which you can compost) available for pickup by gardeners. The Starbucks closest to me places their bags in an open wastebin next to the front door, so all I have to do is run in and check to see whether there's anything for the taking. Throw them in the trunk of my car, which I've lined with plastic.

More great stuff for your lasagna beds or compost piles (and if you don't have a compost pile, you MUST start one!): straw, as in the straw bales you see this time of year used for holiday decorations. (Note: straw, NOT hay, which may contain seeds.)

Also, your Halloween pumpkins. They apparently rot very quickly, so I learned on the compost forum. I'm very lucky in that there's a farm near me that sells pumpkins/gourds this time of year, and I've been given permission to take as many of the rejects as I want. Now, I'm making daily trips. BTW, the seeds will probably sprout, which is a good thing if you like pumpkins; not a good thing otherwise. :) But I figure I'll just weed them when they do sprout and have even more stuff for my compost pile. :)

Sawdust. I have a couple of lumber yards near me where I can get the stuff.

Manures. There are farms near me with horses, with cows, with pigs, with chickens, with sheep, goats, llamas....I want to try to collect the manures. But the composting forum people will tell you that manures should be composted, not put directly in garden beds - this to kill any disease organisms.

For MANY more ideas on what you can put in compost piles and/or lasagna beds, go to the compost forum and do a search on lists of compostibles. I thought I new a lot about composting, but I was so surprised to find that there are lists containing about 200 items.

Anyway, I've gotten off track here. I wanted to say that, with the lasagna beds, you can supposedly plant directly in them, as soon as you've made them. Create the bed, scoop out a hole, add soil, compost, or something to the hole, and pop in the plant. I did that with daylilies, and so far at least, they seem to be loving it.

Today I am going out collecting bagged leaves again. In spite of the fact that its still early around here and trees are just begining to drop I have already filled up the mini van three times and unloaded twice. Have to go back outside and unload again then do another trip. I actually have two mini vans and the old one (16 years old and still runs great) has all the seats removed except for the front two. So only the driver and one passenger can actually sit in it but its great for all my garden chores. I go get my bales of straw in this van too and can fit 8 bales plus some other stuff. So, my point being that when I say I go a van full of bagged leaves, its a lot of bags each time.

I haven't visited the composting forum for quite some time but agree that its a great forum and one can learn a lot there. I lurk there upon occasion.

Alberta- I have been mulching with the collected bagged leaves for as long as I have been here, must be more than 12 years now. I don't bother to shred then, I just dump them out of the bags and use them as is. Since we have lots and lots of trees in the neightborhood, I get all sorts of bagged leaves, depending on which street I drove down to pick them up. I just use the smaller leaves were I have smaller plants to mulch betwen and use the big matty leaves like oaks and maples in the shrub border between the shrubs. Its easy to use the big leaves that way and I don't want them to break down too quickly as I do the shrub areas only once a year each fall. You should see how thick I lay them on, by spring it always packs down.

What a rainey, damp, windy, yucky to be outside day today. I guess the rain is good for the daylilies but thats about all good I can say. Will have to wait until things dry out abit before continueing with the mulching. Plus there was no driving around collecting bags of leaves today by me. I am not that dedicated and besides, there will be lots and lots more to be had.

I have been collecting and I have been mulching. Still lots to do as there are just so many garden beds here that I don't think about how much it actually takes to mulch it until I actually have to do it.

It started out nice and warm and sunny today. Still is quite warm but the sun has gone away. I will take some pictures tomorrow or on the next sunny day so you can see how I do things around here. Too dark looking now with all the clouds for good pictures.

Hello,
Im looking foward to your pictures. I've been using leaves in my beds for about 10 years also. I do mow over most of mine one time. I haven't been posting this last month or so because of a torn rotator cuff in my right arm gives me fits, but I have been reading.

I also use loads of newspaper under my pots to help control the grass and weeds and sometimes I put leaves around the pots if I have extras that I dont need in my beds.

We had our first frost this last week but it hasn't hurt the daylilies yet. They are still growing for next year. As usual, I'm behind on fall chores, but atleast I've got a good reason this year. My plants are all healthy even without the extra fertilize they should have gotten.

I'll be watching for your pics. Blessings to all, Mona

Here is a section of the rose garden that runs all along the south side of my house all mulched.

Further along in the same garden.

The driveway.

Closeup view in a section of the driveway garden.

The Terraces Garden.

Closeup of Daylilies in Terraces Garden.

These pictures are very helpful. I plan on trying this for my roses and daylilies. Thanks gang! Lesley

Mostly the daylilies shown are dormants and some hardy semi evergreens. They do not really need mulching for the cold weather. I used to save the bagged leaves and mulch in the spring because the mulching is really for weed control. But I just do not have the space to store the bagged leaves over the winter that I used to have. Areas that I used to put the leaf bags have been made into garden beds. So I have to use lots of leaves now so that I do not need to store as much overwinter.

Rita,

I have admired how lovely your gardens have looked with the mulch in your pictures. I have maple leaves like crazy, and have mulched my gardens with them for the winter, but have always pulled what was left of the mulch in the spring because I felt it was too tempting a place for slugs to hide. After seeing all the pics of blooming (an weed free!) mulched gardens on this forum this year, I am going to try to leaving it on next year and see what happens.

Do you leave the mulch on your rose beds in the spring as well? If so, how do you seperate the old rose leaves from the mulch? I have such a problem with blackspot in my area that I have to make sure that all of the old leaves are gone gone gone to give my plants a chance to be spot free in the spring.

Your yard is still lovely! We have been so cool in daytime temps that everything is definitely looking like the end of the season is upon us!

And speaking of mulching... collecting before the rainstorms that are supposed to hit tomorrow is my project for the day, so I had best get up off of the couch (day off today! Hooray!) and get to it.

Julie

Hi Julie- Yes, I mulch and leave the mulch. I am always amazed at posts here and on the AHS robin were people say they can hardy see the daylilies because of weeds. I have hardy any weeds because I mulch heavily.

I do have lots of slugs because of the mulch. Mostly, I don't do much. Tried the sluggo years back but try to go organic as much as I can so mostly try beer traps. I am trying to get a polulation of Toads established which would really help.

I leave the mulch on the rose beds as its there to keep out the weeds. I never have tried picking up rose leaves as advised by many. I don't do lots of things that are "common wisdom" and do many things differently in my garden. Works for me. Usually I have not a hint of Blackspot as I spray every two weeks on the dot. Works great. I have stopped spraying more than a month ago as I got lazy. Too eary to stop spraying so there is blackspot and dropped leaves on roses. Its amazing to see some get lots of blackspot and see a rose next to it with none! At any rate, the blackspotted leaves do not concern me as in the spring I will be spraying again and all summer/fall so the roses stay nice and clean. Its just that its lots of work as I have so many roses.

Last year I got blackspot late in the year in late fall when I stopped spraying also. The year before too. Never cleaned up any leaves. And I get lots and lots of compliments on the healthy green leaves on the roses all during the growing season. Spray them with a combo of BAYER ADVANCED DEASEASE CONTROL (fungicide only, no insecticide) with some Nepture Seaweed liquid fertilizer mixed in. Every two weeks. Since I statered planting my garden to attract backyard songbirds, butterflies, hummingbirds and bees, I would never use insecticides. I remember the roses got aphids this year quite badly and I did nothing. Lady bugs came but better yet, I watched the biirds sit on the rose shrubs and bick off aphids and eat all day. Sort of like an all you can eat buffet for birds. The chicadeess fed them to their littles ones in the birdhouse in the back yard and the wrens to their little ones in the front yard.

And I don't even pay attention to planting space. My roses are crammed together. I love the look of lots of flowers, not a shrub surrounded by mulched empty space. My shrubs are planted closely, looks good. I have to prune sometimes but no big deal to me. I guess thats why many of my daylilies are planted very closely, I am not big on lots of space between things. I can afford it either as I do not have a large yard.

In the shot of the driveway garden above, one can just about make out the berries for the backyard birds on the viburnams and red aronia pictured. I usually do not take pictures of it because its the daylily forum but I have a mixed shrub berries for the birds border going all along the south property line and it looks great. Sort of like the edge of a woods. Lots and lots of viburnum berries going on there now. Birds love my garden.

I feel like I have moved to the rainey Pacific northwest or something. Two weeks of rain here and I have not been able to get on with the mulching. I am not such a dedicated gardener that I work in the cold rain :-((

Rita,

I feel for you and wish I could send some of my weekend your way! We are used to the rain, but our "rain" is usually nothing like in other areas of the states. We just drizzle indefinitely-- you can't swear never to work in the rain here or you would never get anything done, but at least you don't get instantly drenched to the bone.

I have been working on my mulching this weekend as we have had a glorious couple of days... highs of 55 and sunny. Don't be too envious though, as this is right after a week of straight rain being topped off on Wednesday by 6 inches at my house in one day. Many of the local roads were closed due to flooding, and my husband spent two days straight cleaning ditches and keeping four pumps running to keep the water below floor level on our house. Like I said, our world is not used to heavy rains, and they have a dramatic effect. I just remind myself when I am wading to the shop or my pumphouse that even at the worst of times I still have it so much better than those in the hurricane zones!

Just think positive... the sun will come out tomorrow! (or soon at least 8)!)

Julie

Julie,

What a nice and positive post! Glad to hear you were able to keep the water from flooding your home in all your fall rains. 3 of the 17 years of living in Alaska were spent in Sitka, AK on the Baranoff Island, Southeast AK. The rains you describe were the rains we had so many days and days on end. In the fall squalls was when we had the HARD rains, and they played havoc on everything and everyone when they came around. Jan G.

One of the best parts of an internet community such as ours here is getting a small glimpse of life as it is in many areas much different from our own.

I do mulch some. I wish it would break down though. It just stays there and does not. To dry. We get .58 inches on average this month and this is not the dryest month. Much different than when I was in NH (in the same zone) and this was the wetest month on average. But I guess it does have its advantages. Nothing rots.

rich

A nice sunny day here and while still cold, not as cold as yesterday and no
wind so that helps. My landscape guys that do my grass cutting and all my
walls just came and dumped a complete full truck of leaves in my driveway to
spread around and finish the mulching. I still need to do the evergreens in the backyard on the daylily plateau and the
ones in the front yard. Besides that all the shrub beds needs lots of
leaves for mulch as I pile them on each fall and thick enough to last all
year. It helps make it woodsy looking and of course, I don't get many weeds
that way.

I need another truckload of leaves to finish all my shrub beds. All the daylilies are done. I just muched them all fairly heavily, all of them. Did not pay any attention to if they were dormant or evergreen just did it.

Yesterday was alot of rain that lasted all day and some of the time was quite lots coming down. Seems to have worked out well as it really settled those leaves down that I used as mulch in all the daylily beds. Nice and snug as a bug for winter. Should be lots of earthworms come spring, which is good and lots of slugs come spring, which is not good.