The
Autumn Leaf Plan
October
17, 2003
Dear Marti,
What is the plan for leaves this year?
Signed,
Beth
Dear Beth,
Yes, the Leaf Plan. As I understand it, the
first part of the Leaf Plan is pretty set: they'll change colors,
inspire awe, reminiscence and possibly a little poetry and then
fall from the trees onto your lawn, sidewalks and gutters. The
second part of the Plan depends on you and what you want to do
with what is really a gift from Mama Nature, rather than a bothersome
chore. Here's the briefing on part II of the Leaf Plan:
Collections and Drop-off: Each year,
most municipalities in Boulder County create a program for leaves
involving curbside collection or temporary drop-off sites. Every
town is different, so to get the scoop on your community's plan,
including dates for collections and locations for drop-off, visit
the Eco-Cycle website at www.ecocycle.org
and click on the name of your town. Programs generally begin in
late October and go through most of November. Each community will
be turning leaves and twigs into mulch, and most offer free mulch
to residents on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Mulching: Before you go to all the trouble
of raking, bagging and shipping your leaves off your property,
you might want to save yourself some time and money by keeping
them as a mulch you can use to bed down your plants and trees
for a long winter's nap. Leaves are a soil nutrient you don't
have to go buy, Mother Nature delivers them to your door free
of charge to create a habitat for microorganisms that will slowly
digest the leaves and make their valuable nutrients available
to the soil. Mulching protects soil and plant roots from temperature
extremes and greatly reduces evaporation of soil moisture. A little
mulch this winter can help suppress weed growth next spring and
summer.
Any open ground, whether it is an unplanted
bed or underneath trees, shrubs, or other plants can benefit from
mulching year-round.
Dan Matsch, Eco-Cycle's compost expert, suggests
some simple application methods for mulch:
- Rake it and leave it. Rake the leaves from
your lawn directly under the canopy of your perennial trees
and shrubs or directly onto beds, to a depth of about 6 inches.
Moisten thoroughly to settle them in and protect them from the
wind. Leave them there all year; they'll be almost gone when
it's time to re-apply. Limiting factors are exposure to high
winds, amount of twigs in rakings, and degree to which bindweed
is a problem (bindweed loves loose mulch).
- Put the news to use. To increase weed suppression,
you can really make practical use of this column by taking it
along with the rest of the paper and putting down a layer of
newspaper at least one "section" thick (after moistening
the soil). Immediately wet the newspaper, then rake and moisten
the leaves. The newspaper increases weed suppression in areas
where weeds (including bindweed) are a problem.
- Get the kids rolling. If your trees shed
a lot of twigs along with the leaves, it's best to run your
rakings through a chipper/shredder before use as mulch. A chipper/shredder
can also be useful for reducing the size of leaves in high wind
areas to create a denser mat. If you don't have access to one,
you can rake dry leaves up into a tarp and then roll the tarp
up into a big sausage. Got kids? Make them earn their keep by
having them roll over the top of the leaf sausage several times
to crunch the leaves down.
No matter what Leaf Plan you follow this year,
don't make the mistake of throwing them in the garbage. After
all, it's not nice to trash a gift from your Mother.
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