Leaf raking and mulching in Zone 6 ...?

Is there any harm in letting the fallen leaves just remain on my flower beds? I'm afraid I already know the answer, but if there's some way I can escape all that raking - and it's not easy to rake between my plants without damaging some - I wouldn't mind.
Also I've heard different things about the need to mulch for the winter. I do plan on mulching anything that I planted in the past several months, but do I need to mulch the more established plants too?
- Lazy Jan, in north central New Jersey

Ah, Jan, I had the exact same question! One of my flower beds is underneath a 50 ft pin oak that still has about half of its leaves left. I can't imagine having to get in there and removing all those leaves by hand. I can't use a rake, because of all the shallow-rooted plants.

I'd read that whole leaves mat down and don't decompose fast enough. But how about allowing just a little bit (1-2 layers) to stay on the bed?

Personally- I do let leaves lay in beds.
One caution is that voles seem more comfortable under loose leaves than under a denser mulch, just my personal feeling, I can't say I have read that anywhere.
To me its nature's way to have leaves in the beds.
Must take leaves OFF if you hope for self sowing things or tiny new things to go through winter. They'd get covered too easily.
Iris is one thing you DO NOT want leaves laying on. They are more likely to rot. Leave iris "bulbs" (rhizomes) bare or barely covered with dirt.

I do leave a light layer of leaves over most of the beds but I do edit the areas around certain plants and go in with a small hand rake. It is beneficial to the soil to have the leaves decay in place.
Irises as mentioned by sallyg and cardinal flowers need a clear area to set seed for example.

One of the other reasons I allow as much to stay where they fall is to protect and encourage any chrysalis or dormant butterfly or eggs to mature by the spring since I have made an effort to plant many native plants they use as hosts.
I'm watching a few black swallowtail caterpillars even at this late date hoping they make it to the chrysalis stage so they can over winter.
Leaving leaves (and spent flower stakes, flowerheads.etc.) in place for as long as possible into late spring could be the critical difference between providing a healthy sustainable environment for next years butterflies and beneficial insects or a "sink" that destroys.

If you have time and energy to gather lawn leaves and run over them with the lawn mower a few times they provide a fine airy mulch for the beds.

In the winter, only after the ground freezes, is when you apply a winter mulch of evergreen boughs.

It has been months since I have been visiting Dave's garden site I have been so busy. I am an avid composter and I leave my leaves lay where they want too they protect my plants in the back yard . Yesterday I racked most of the leaves in the front yard and today I will be planting my bulbs late of course , but it is Ok. The past three months I have been busy hacking with bronchitis and pneumonia so now that I am over all that I can do yard work again. I just do one section at the time. Once I plant my bulbs I will be shredding some of the leaves with my lawn mower and covering the beds again for protection for the winter and of course the squirrels. we are in the process of replacing the roof so with all the rain and the construction workers my back yard resemble more of a mud puddle than a back yard, I will get to it after the front yard is finished which will take some time since I will be moving my vegetable garden and the peonies , relocate the fall asters and the butterfly bushes between me and my neighbor (natural screen and something to enjoy from my window during the summer). For some reason the asters have reseeded themselves in various parts of the yard and this is not what I want. As always with the new year my work is cut out....Back to the leaves mine are leaves from my oak trees and my neighbors, I save them all and always manage to run out of leaves by the summer when i need to alternate the green and the brown in my compost pile. This year I wont have that problem my son just bought a house on 4 acres that are all woods. more leaves for me.

Hi orchidancy!
Glad you're feeling better. Boy, another/ continuation of the massive work you put into your gardens! It'll be beautiful again when you're done. Yes, I'd say he'll never run out of leaves and always be glad if you take some away.

This morning I visited my son and had the pleasure to give him one of my feral kitties , a gorgeous orange male with long fur who also has a great personality. I found out that my son will be getting a lawn mower that has an attachment that will suck the leaves and shred them at the same time. With that in mind not only I will be his mother but also his BFF for all the shredded leaves.I also have couple friends who will be glad to take some too.
Picture of Peach at 4 months old.

I didn't do anything with the leaves this year either. Last year we shredded a ton of them at Josh's House and used them for mulch in the fall. It was really nice but a lot of work. This year I didn't bother at all. I have a couple of beds that collect leaves pretty heavily along side the house. I always have to clear some of them up in the spring. Just get out there early enough to get them off the daffs and other early plants and they should be just fine.
orchidancy, I was thinking the same thing as Sally. What a ton of work you have put into your Gardens in the last few years with all those plants you had to move. I can't wait to see some new pics next summer.

I think that a garden is in perpetual motion , you put things in one place one year , then you realize that you would like somewhere else better. This year i discovered that the butterfly bushes that were destroyed when the sidewalk was built had reseeded themselves in some of the flower beds . so I will be relocating them between my house and the yard next door. In the meantime I had bought two , they will be going there too, perfect privacy screen , adding beauty to privacy and the butterflies love it.My vegetable beds have to move , the holly tree is shading them too much I need to do something about it , and the tree peonies need to move too , they are baked to death by the driveway. I need to move them while they are dormant. I have a lot to do this year during the winter in the garden.

This is what my front yard looked like after the sidewalk was build and I redone all the flower beds. I should have taken some pictures later when the yard was in full bloom but I got involved with other things.

Floriferous!

I guess most people are not much in leaf racking. I do not have the choice in my yard I have few trees and my neighbors whose leaves blow into my yard also. found a good way to get the leaves off the ground with the lawn mower, it works great with a bag and it shreds relatively fine. I use this mulch in my flower beds as a mulch for the winter in all my flower beds . I also save several bags that I use in the summer for my compost piles alternating the green and the brown. I do not waste any discards other than the tomato vines and such.maybe it is why my yard is so prolific.

orchid- I once read an article somewhere that made that point, that is, that all the organic material you might throw away, is composed of all the nutrients it took from your soil to grow (besides sun and water) So, keeping it all conserves nutrients on the whole. It made a lot of sense to me!

Mowing up the leaves is a great way to mulch them. If you don't have too many you can just mow them and not bag them. They can be good for the lawn as well if there aren't too many.

We mowed a lot in place last year. This year DS wanted to make a giant leaf pile for his brother when he came home from school. Then we borrowed a shredder. Piled the shredded leaves under the trees where I have naturalized daffodils. This weekend I moved some leaves and found six inch, pale daff sprouts.

As a rule we shred the leaves but this year I am so far behind everything plus I can work outside for just short periods of time , I do not want to get bronchitis again, so I work one area for few hours and mulch with the lawn mower, then another area the next time.

In the past few days it has been too cold for me to be outside so I am working on a new project in the basement. This will involve waterproofing the walls and then lay out some ceramic tiles where the washer , dryer and utility tub are going to move to. I am reorganizing so it make's sense to me. I will be doing one section at the time . This will be a 10x 12 section. My husband will move the electrical and do the plumbing .this has to be finished before the week end, I do not do well without a washer and dryer for any length of time LOL

Pictures to follow tomorrow as a before pic, tonight I am resting from scraping the walls, tomorrow caulking , concrete and later painting....

Here is a picture of what I am dealing with, very inspiring as you see...

Orchidfancy! Wow, your idea of not pushing yourself leaves me breathless... give your body a chance to rest & heal after that bronchitis ordeal, OK? I think you're the spunkiest, most energetic soft-spoken person I've ever met!

That is actually inspiring, in a blank-canvas, anything-would-be-an-improvement sort of way! It is nice and clean and scraped-looking, but I think the actual painting and tiling will be more fun than the caulking & concrete...

Well, fixing up a place where you have to go almost daily has to be worth it! I sure liked getting a new laundry room, couple yrs ago.

Trust me this basement project has become an oddyssey, The hydraulic concrete dries in less than 3 minutes so you can only make a cup at the time and spread it as quick as you can. I asked my husband to install a new light, we have some old circuit in the basement , poof went the circuit, few sparkles and the basement is light less. Painting has been by candlelight (drop light) another challenge, the paint is waterproof it is heavy and not at all fun to use with a paint brush or anything else I think. I have half of the wall done that mean 4 feet up , 4 more feet to go. Yesterday I decided to relax , meaning cleaning the house and reorganizing . I am pleased with the changes but the cats are not happy. I moved their favorite settee in the den where we have the fireplace, my plants are happy they have more light. You just can't please everybody, the only two who don't have any objections to my reorganizing are my husband and the dog, they both share the couch and the TV and I never move either.
Today I am taking a break, tomorrow back into the abyss of the basement trying to put a new circuit and what else that need to be done....In the meantime the laundry is piling up....
And now I am ready for a good cup of hot chocolate and a croissant .

Oh I feel for you. That is how it is at my house one project turns into a dozen before it is finished.

Orchidfancy, that paint is terrible! We fina;;y ended up using something called a painters pad and more "spreading" it on than painting it. Very frustrating to see all those pinholes appear as it dries, Hope your electrical problems get worked out soon. Right now I have two non working circuits due to fuse box corrosion. Was hoping for another year before needing to replace/ update electric . Sometime only being able to do parts of projects seems more like pennance than progress! Glad you have a partner who is handy Keep us posted!

The partner was put back to his place the other day because he cannot do any projects without being impatient or have a poor disposition making the job that much less pleasant to all parties concerned. Since then with all the happening I have not heard any grumbblings. We will be back tracing the lines tomorrow and hopefully by the end of the day few things will be back to normal whatever that means , having a washer would be a major improvement in my book and a laundry tub installed , , lets just go with one thing at the time ....I really appreciate all his know how , electrical , plumbing, AC heat it save a lot...

The only problem with being the guy that can do 'bout anything is, you some times get to do it all. LOL:-}
I hate paying a lot for things I can do if I can get to them. Molding is a good example, I prefer to make my own, it's relatively easy (esp.painted), but it takes time, I think the prices they charge are ridiculous. :-( DIY is not always fun but can save $$$$hundreds since Murphy's law usually applies.
Example: changing a threaded hose bib, a simple job, results in a damaged pipe because the builder never attached the drop ear inside the concrete and block wall.
Result: 6-8 hours of breaking a hole in the wall, gently sawing the damaged pipe off with a hack saw blade so as not to alter the pipes shape, clean, solder, p test the new fitting, ensue the new drop ear is well attached, insert a quality brass nipple w/ temp. cap, mix cement to repair the wall and parging, and finally install the new bib. All that to replace a $10(at most) part. Had a plumber done this your talking $600-$800. :-( Yes it happened to me, at my Dad's. Holly was so convincing LOL :-} saying it would only take me 30 minutes tops, We ended up leaving a day late. ROFL Ric

We do almost all the repairs around the house because of the same reason :cost. We actually had to break down recently we have to draw the line somewhere the roof.... We had the shingles replaced added new gutters, the ones that we had were only 4" re replaced them with 6". The roof was flush with the house and the fascia was rotting and water sipping into the wall , we had the roof extended by a foot , it looks a lot nicer and I do not have to worry about the water getting into my walls ever. The roof line has been like this since it was built in 1942 , time for change. This is why we are doing this fun basement project which would cost me a pretty penny if I was having had done , it only cost me a little bit of money and a bit of tress , the job is not going fast enough.One saving grace the weather does not look that great so I don't feel bad about being like a mole in the basement. this might even inspire me to straighten it out I am sure that my husband would love that. There again a lot of the stuff is his too....I could start my own business with all the philips screwdrivers that are there , the number of wrenches and some of the tools that are in set that he has had for years , must have of course , could not go without and never were opened . Last week I asked him what was in the box set he opened and here we are more wrenches , but now he needs them , new toys.... We have the jobs divided this way, I do the painting, ceramic tiling, flooring, and of course the gardening and anything that involves a hammer and nails. He does the electric plumbing, A.C. and heat it is fair I think. So now to the basement I go..........

LOL, I remember that mess well. Saying to Ric why don't you fix that outside faucet it's not a big job. I am famous for getting him to do little jobs that become big messes. Holly

Yesterday I finished to paint the wall , we now have light and I got smart about the waterproofing paint , I used a roller it is much easier. Today I painted half of the floor with white garage paint a lot easier than doing ceramic tiles,( this is the basement not the Taj) the other half has a freezer on it . This evening we moved the freezer , now I can finish the job that mean tomorrow morning I will be painting again. Maybe tomorrow night we will have a washer and dryer in place.....No Wednesday because he is off.

Our basement floor could be painted too. It came to us as dark green. Our addition basement floor, we got to pick floor paint and my choice supposed to be sand color is sorta peach- yuck.
I know you'll be happy to get this done.

Sounds like it is coming along pretty good. My floor in the back room is painted dark grey and most of the living room and kitchen is still just painted plywood I really need to get some tile down one of these days. It just keeps getting put off.

If I ever put paint basement floor on my todo list I think I would paint it with the "garage floor" paint that you can add little flecks of color to so that it mimics terrazo tile. Also, if I am recalling correctly, it has a non slip kind of surface.

http://www.originalcolorchips.com/index.html

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20174654,00.html



Orchidfancy, wishing you great success tomorrow. Post a ta da pic when you are finished!

This message was edited Jan 24, 2012 7:48 PM