Don't Send Your Leaves to the Landfill!

It's that time of year again. Beautiful leaves are falling and my neighbors are bagging them up to send to the landfill. It makes me crazy. Leaves are nature's fertilizer! If you want a beautiful yard next year, just mulch 'em up and let them do their thing.

For the last few years, after I think that everyone's at work, I head out with by cart to bring big plastic bags full of leaves home to my yard (Bonus! If I don't rip the bag, my next garbage can liner is free!). Each year I get bolder. I've been known to stop at strangers' houses and load up my trunk with bags of lovely leaves abandoned by the curb, already decomposing into rich soil. Last year I actually went to two neighbor's houses and volunteered to rake their leave if I could drag them to my house.

This morning, though, I took a chance. I went out before 9 a.m. because I saw that my favorite leaves were on the curb and I know BFI comes early (Grrr. Another pet peeve. Read more at Take Your Own Trash to the Dump). I had to get these "leaves" because this neighbor mulches a lot and the bags are half full of mulch. Good stuff. I used the half mulch to finish off the low edge of one bed (above, right) and mulched around the fence line of my garden where I planted iris and daffodil bulbs. Subsequent bags from this neighbor's yard will be more leaf, less mulch, but the first rake of the season is always the best because the landscapers end up raking away the dry mulch on top of the beds.

Finally, I fill up my compost bins with leaves. Come fall, after being mixed with veggie scraps, coffee grounds, and rain, they will have decomposed into a nutritious blend perfect for mixing with native soil to give my plants the meal they need. Leaves do that, you know. Decompose. You'd think my yard would be ten feet high by now, but actually, those leaves have become a nice, thick layer of topsoil over what was a typical Williamsburg yard made of clay.

I've written two articles about composting leaves for Suite 101. To learn more about the benefits of leaving the leaves, take a look at Fall Landscape Maintenance: Use Leaves to Make Compost, Protect Wildlife and Fertilize Naturally with Leaf Mulch: Mow for Mulch, Use Leaf Litter to Improve Soil, Add to Compost.