There are many reasons to leave your leaves this fall! Our top 5 reasons are:
- Leaf litter provides valuable habitat for thousands of different species, mostly invertebrates. Some of the critters include pill bugs, earthworms, caterpillars, spiders, slugs, and larger animals like salamanders, chipmunks, box turtles, toads, shrews, and more!
- Leaves return valuable nutrients to the soil and plants and build organic matter. Leaves are abundant in nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and carbon compounds, and include numerous trace nutrients and minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and zinc.
- Leaves suppress weeds and unwanted vegetation from competing with your trees and other plants
- Bagging leaves and throwing them in a landfill produces methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, as the leaves decompose in anaerobic conditions
- save yourself time and energy!
The nutrients in leaves are good for your lawn, but you do not want a thick layer to block sunlight from reaching the grass. You can use your mower to break the leaves up so they decompose quicker and allow photosynthesis to occur. You can also add leaves to your compost, or use them for mulch. The most important thing is to make sure your leaves don’t go to a landfill! (that goes for other yard trimmings and compost as well, but that will be a subject for another post)