![]() It will provide all kinds of ecosystem services, whether it's better water infiltration or better air quality. ![]() It's just a different way of thinking about the landscape, and much more environmentally sensitive. But I think it's a good idea to sort of flip that paradigm and design areas of the lawn that provide for play and gathering spaces, and then figure out what everything else can be. Susan Barton: The suburban norm is to have a lawn with some decorative plants around the house, or at the end of the driveway. How can people get the most out of their lawns and make their landscaping more environmentally friendly? But it's a good idea to add some additional fertilizer besides just the leaf litter. So it really doesn't make sense to fertilize in the spring.Īlso, when you chop up the leaves in the fall, you are actually also fertilizing in the fall because you're putting those chopped up leaves back into the soil. When you fertilize in the spring, your grass is growing leaves at that point, so you're really just causing the grass to grow more and grow faster, and you will need to mow more often. Susan Barton: In the fall, because that is when turf grass is primarily growing roots and you're promoting the kind of grass growth that makes a healthy, dense lawn. Then you spread the leaves on your landscape beds. There are also leaf vacuums that vacuum, chop up and put the leaves in a bag. ![]() Make them smaller by either mowing over the leaves where they fall in the lawn, or raking them into piles and then mowing them. Susan Barton: Chopping them up will dramatically reduce the blowing of the leaves. What can keep leaves from blowing from one property to another? By allowing that to happen in your landscape beds, you're getting the same benefits. If you think about forest, where leaves just naturally return to the soil and decompose every year, it's some of the richest soil we have. So if you allow the leaves to go back into the landscape, you are providing nutrients for the plants to take up, and you are providing organic matter that will improve the soil structure. Susan Barton: The leaves contain nutrients, and they also are a source of organic matter. What are the benefits of mulching leaves rather than removing them? But if they fall in a landscape bed, or under trees, shrubs and larger plants, it's fine to just leave the leaves without mulching them. So when the leaves fall, either rake them up or chop them up with a lawn mower so they are finer and can sift down in through the grass blades. Susan Barton: A layer of leaves on the lawn will exclude light, which would be detrimental to the lawn. Can leaves on a landscaped property ever be left as they are, or should they always be mulched? Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. Below are some highlights from the interview.
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