Helpful information
Timing: Autumn
Where to do it: Outdoors
Garden space: Large garden, small garden
Timing: Autumn
Where to do it: Outdoors
Garden space: Large garden, small garden
With a nip in the air and evenings becoming darker, it is clear that autumn has arrived.
This is a transitional time for lots of plants in the garden. Some will already be unrecognisable from their summer peak.
One of the common autumn jobs is to clear leaves. But what should we do with them?
There are plenty of options. We can clear some and leave some be. At Thrive, we particularly love to use autumn leaves to create luxurious leaf mould compost. We explore this and other options below.
If you have a large garden, or lots of overhanging leaves, you may have huge amounts of fallen leaves to tackle. You may simply need to clear some and put them in your garden waste.
Try and collect leaves on calmer days, otherwise the wind may blow away your efforts!
Use a lawn rake on any areas of grass along with beds and borders. On hard surfaces, a wide broom may be more useful to sweep leaves into piles. When the leaves collect between plants, using your hands to collect them can help avoid damaging the plants.
Using a rake can jolt the arms and strain the back. Choose a lighter rake and work in very short bursts, to reduce hand strain.
If you have any sight loss, you may prefer to use a short rake at ground level. A kneeler seat with handles will reduce discomfort for your knees.
Find more advice on good technique and ways to make it easier in our guide to raking the garden.
One good way to support wildlife in our gardens is to create some piles of leaves. Lots of smaller animals will use these as cover or even places to nest.
Before you begin clearing leaves, look and see how the wind has naturally begun to move them. Leaves may collect against fences and hedges or against larger shrubs. Another place they collect is in corners against buildings and sheds. Choose a couple of these places to put your wildlife leaf piles.
Spots beside hedges and larger shrubs can be particularly good. There is often a wide variety of wildlife here, whether that's solitary bees, moth and butterfly eggs or caterpillars.
Leaves can make a good mulch (material used to cover the soil) for your beds and borders.
Leaf mulch is probably not so good used anywhere you are growing vegetables. This is because when we place organic matter that hasn’t decomposed into soil, at first nitrogen from the soil is used up as part of the decomposing process. This can make the soil nitrogen deficient. When we use leaves as a mulch, it's not such an issue as it's only the very top layer of the soil that's affected. Still, for vegetables this may prevent them growing so quickly and successfully.
When using leaves as mulch, it's best to use shredded leaves. An easy way to do this is by spreading the leaves onto a recently mown lawn. Go over the leaves with a mower - preferably one that has a collecting bag on the back. On some mowers, you can raise the cutting height. This can help avoid getting unwanted weeds or seeds along with the shredded leaves.
Spread the shredded leaves across beds and borders. A thickness of around 6-15cm is a good amount.
Some plants do not like moisture around their stems, trunks or crowns. Some examples to avoid mulching are:
A trick we use at Thrive is to first place upturned pots over any crowns, as they are trickier to avoid mulching over. After mulching, remove any leaves that have gathered around those plants that do not like a lot of moisture.
If shredding is going to be difficult then whole leaves can be used. Rather than forking them into the soil the following spring, you may have to remove them if they haven’t composted at all to avoid nitrogen loss.
You can use fallen leaves to make leaf mould by storing them in bin bags or a spare compost bin. This will eventually turn into a nutrient-rich compost.
Read our separate guide to making leaf mould for details.
There are lots of creative ways to use leaves. From ephemeral (temporary) garden artworks to longer-lasting pictures, have some fun with your leaves as they fall to earth.
Find a range of ideas to get you started in our article on creating leaf art.
Do you have any ways you use autumn leaves that are not mentioned here? Share your tips! Email us at info@thrive.org.uk - or, you could just send us a photo of your autumn leaf piles