the magic of leaves.

I have a area on the backside of one of my flower beds that gets neglected every year. the leaves always build up there and go undisturbed for years. Last summer i finally cleaned it up. Talk about perfect soil underneath. The soil was black, fluffy and rich with worms and nurtients. I wish i could leave the leaves every where all year round. I will certainly use leaf mold more often in the garden too.

You could leave the leaves everywhere all year as your mulch. I'd like to do that too, but my husband thinks it looks too messy. I use leaves in fall, cover whatever is left with the shredded bark in summer. He wants shredded wood mulch. (But then he likes a perfect, manicured lawn and I prefer chaotic kaleidoscopes of flowers).

Karen

Leaf mold is fabulous stuff. And, Karen, I vote with you, for the chaotic kaleidoscope effect wherever possible. ;-)

Kyla

i would leave the leaves but they are oak leaves so they dont look nice and dont break down as fast. Also, my yard is mostly irises so they dont like being under leaves for long.

Yeah, oak leaves do take quite a while. I too would instead just pile them up somewhere, or even bag them up, they rot in there too. ;-)

I usually put them in the back of the yard and also hall some off to our cabin and dump them in a big pile every year. I wish i had maples instead of messy oaks!

Shred them and put them back in the beds. It will look neater and break down faster.
If you don't have or want to buy a shredder, try a weedeater in a garbage can. I love the oak leaves the best down here (north FL) but then most of the maple trees around here are in the woods, not in yards, and we have lots of oaks in yards, red oak, white oak, chestnut oak being the best. Not live oak or water oak, they are hard small leaves.

I use a lot of pinoak leaves as well as maple. Most of mine are shredded with a lawnmower. The pinoaks don't seem to take much longer to break down than my maples, if it all.

Karen