It is fall and garden clean-up time in the Northern hemisphere. Mother nature in her wisdom offers an abundant, free, nutrient rich, toxin-free and stabilizing soil amendment in the forms of falling leaves. Your perennials will appreciate the layer of dried leaves, and your soil will be healthier in the next growing season.
Maroon to purplish brown leaf mulch makes whatever is still green in your garden look extra crisp. The muted contrast is pleasing to the eyes. It makes you appreciate the greenery that keeps growing in the cold season.
Don’t recycle all the leaves that blow onto your street and in your growing area. Keep some (ideally all) in your garden – as soil cover, soil builder, weed inhibitor, food and shelter material for the ecosystem that lives in your garden.
Don’t forget to jump into a few leaf piles this season.
9 November 2021
Nanda Jurela 