fallen leaves in a perennial garden

14 years ago

I turned my front yard into a perennial garden this year and we're across the street from woods, so we have a ton of leaves. I have a compost bin for everything I rake form the sidewalk and paths, but was wondering what to do with the leaves in the garden.

I didn't cut any perennials back. What's there now is what is left from the summer. I wanted the benefits of allowing the leaves to break down, but read too many warnings against it. So I bought a blower/vaccum to blow the leaves out, vaccum up through the shredder, and then I plan on immediately spreading them back out over the garden. Wondering if this is a good plan since I won't have to worry about whole, wet leaves being matted down and freezing.

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Comments (5)

cactusgarden
14 years ago
I never had any trouble in the past with that. The shredded leaves are very nice and work into the soil and look neat. Rosebushes, as I understand it, like only oak leaves because they don't mat up. I don't trim most plants back until late winter.

The only problem you might have would be any plants that easily rot at the base like succulents or ones needing very good drainage like arid loving plants.

I have also read those warnings and about insects wintering over, that leaves attract bad guys, but personally never had a problem except I did uncover a nest of coreid bugs yesterday and sprayed them. Felt good, I got lots of them in one easy hit. Maybe they are talking about deep piles of unraked leaves in those warnings. Once you break them down in the shredder, they are nice and flat on the ground.

The leaves attract earthworms and fallen leaves left in place is how nature acts in the wild so something must be right.
terrene
14 years ago
For most of my perennials beds, I just leave the leaves in place. This is not a problem for the most part, but there are a few exceptions. Those needing good drainage and arid plant, as Cactus says. Also, the perennials that are preferred by voles - for me these are some of my favorite natives, including Baptisia, Echinacea, Liatris, etc. They have thick fleshy roots that apparently are quite tasty. For those I pull back the mulch until the ground freezes solid, and the voles can no longer navigate through the soil.

Leaf litter is the natural mulch for woodland plants, so for those I would definitely leave the leaves alone. Beneficial insects overwinter in the leaf litter as well as bad. Also, birds such as Robins and Rusty Blackbirds love to flip through leaf litter to find food.

As for raking out leaves, then shredding, then mulching them back, that is just way too much work for me. Perhaps I would do that if the garden bed were a showcase, because the shredded leaves do make a nice-looking mulch. But I let most of the leaves that fall or blow where they lay. Ma nature has done the mulching for me!
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cactusgarden
14 years ago
When we used to have a lawn we used the lawn mower to chop them up. I'd rake them all into the middle of the lawn and mow them up like a vacuum cleaner and dump the bag into the beds. It was sort of the big weekend marathon autumn cleanup.

Now I have mostly arid loving native plants and cactus. We have a large pin oak next door and these collect around the plants all winter because of the continuous leaf fall but I haven't had any rot problems, these kinds of leaves don't get real wet or matted and seem kind of waxy like they repel water. Even with the lawn mower, they would sort of wad up rather then chop up because they aren't brittle.

I bet the robins like the earthworms you always get under the leaves and you do see lots of other beneficials when doing spring cleaning that have wintered over. I've also uncovered baby grasshoppers just hatching and coming out. Makes for another easy massacre. Garter snakes like them too.
c2g
Original Author
14 years ago
Well, spent about 4 hrs over the weekend blowing the leaves out of the garden and the back yard. Converted to the vacuum mulcher and it was fantastic. Got a few surprised looks from the neighbors when I spread everything back over everything I just cleaned, especially when I brought another pile of leaves from across the street to get another bag of mulch. I must say, I like the look of mulched leaves and my back yard - which used to be under an asphalt carport a few years ago - could use the extra soil nutrients.
gardenweed_z6a
14 years ago
My kids bring big commercial leaf blowers every year to clear the oak leaves off the lawn. The lawn is huge but so are the 5 giant oak trees so the leaves pretty much blanket the whole area. We load them into a trailer and dump them down along the back boundary to decompose over the winter. Whatever leaves fall on my flowerbeds get left over the winter as an extra layer of protection. I clean the beds in spring and get rid of the leaves after they've helped insulate the plants during the coldest weather. Perennials don't seem to care either way. It takes all 5 or 6 of us several hours just to do the lawn.