Leaf it Alone! - How to Use Fallen Leaves in Your Garden & Landscape

Michael Holleran, assistant district manager from Davey's Wilmington, DE office, talks about the many uses and benefits of leaves, including nutrients, composting, mulching and more. 

In this episode we cover: 

• How to repurpose leaves on your property (0:51) (14:34)
• What to do with thick patches of leaves (1:40)
• Leaves for mulching (4:03)
• Testing your soil's pH levels (5:34)
• Removing leaves is removing a source of nutrients (7:04)
• Leaves for compost (8:29)
• Why should we compost? (9:53)
• What are the easiest leaves to deal with? (13:24)
• Other uses for leaves (15:24)
• Locust leaves (17:04)
• Soil conditions during and after a drought (18:00)
• Wildlife looking for water during drought (19:33)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about leaves and all their uses and benefits, read our blogs, Managing Fallen Leaves In Your Yard and Compost Shredded, Dry Leaves for Leaf Compost Benefits. 

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company 

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.

Michael Holleran, an assistant district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company in Wilmington-Brandywine, Delaware area, is our guest again today. We're talking all about leaves and what an important part they are of the landscape. Right, Mike?

Michael Holleran: That's right. Leaves are an incredibly-- they are a wasted asset in a lot of ways, in my opinion.

Doug: Just tell me I don't have to rake up all those oak leaves that are going to be coming down here in a month.

Michael: Please don't. I don't love-- leaf cleanup is a foolish way to spend your money. There are tons of ways to use leaves beneficially on your property. If nothing else, mulch them into your lawn. Leaves are a valuable source of nutrient. They can be used for a ton of different things. Paying somebody to use gas-powered leaf blowers and a gas-powered leaf vacuum seems pretty foolish to me.

Doug: I'm going to be selfish here, and I'm going to ask your advice. I've got a big, flat area with turf. I live in this oak forest. It's going to be the heaviest leaves you can imagine, and a lot of them. You think I can get away with, and this is what I've been doing, just running the lawnmower over them over and over and over again until they're as small as possible. I still have grass there. Sometimes, it gets so thick, I worry about it. I worry if I might be, I don't know, covering up some of that grass too much. How do I know what I can leave there?

Michael: That's a valid concern. In my lawn, I haven't approached that threshold yet. I don't have a tremendous amount of trees. I do get some leaves, a couple of big silver maples around me. The leaves blow in. I also have very vigorous turf. I'm in a very sunny area for the most part, where my turf is very dense. It can take traffic really well. I'm not trying to coerce turf into growing in the shade. A lot of that adds to the conversation.

If you have vigorous turf, not a tremendous amount of leaves, mulch them all up. If you have shady turf that is already sputtering and not great, maybe not really deeply rooted, not incredibly vigorous, and you have a tremendous amount of leaves, maybe you're not mulching all of those up on top of the turf. You certainly don't want to smother it. You don't want to totally limit its ability to photosynthesize. I like mulching the leaves when I can lose them, for the most part, in the thatch layer, in the turf itself.

Doug: Before we started recording, Mike and I were talking. We're both dealing with a little bit of a drought situation. This flat turf area is sputtering. I can't keep enough water on it. I'm using the water other places. Again, whatever's left there when those leaves come down, if I have to, I will shred them with the mower. If I have to, I will till them in and start again. Start with some more seed either late in the fall or early in the spring. There's so many other different ways that leaves can be a resource for you.

Again, living in this forest, in this house, being here since 1939, someone's been dumping leaves over the side for all those years. Underneath that pile is sweet black compost, the leaf mold. Boy, you can use that anywhere, in the garden or on the property.

Michael: Anywhere. A valuable source of nutrients. Also, what you just talked about with the drought situation. I mulch a lot with leaves in and around garden beds. I don't accumulate enough to do all my gardens. I typically don't let them sit long enough either, but I'm using them for mulch nonetheless. I like to chop them up with either a lawnmower or some sort of chipper or something, just to make the pieces a little bit smaller so they don't tend to mat. Really, anything you can use as a soil covering will help that water retention piece, whether that be hardwood mulch, whether it be leaves, whether it be compost, or whatever.

Doug: I think that's an important point, especially with something heavy like an oak leaf to shred it. You've got those nice maple leaves. Boy, I'd love to be raking, blowing those, or shredding those. Those are a breeze compared to the big, ugly oak leaf. Like you said, it is a great mulch. Now, do I have any concerns about pH or anything, acidic or any of that stuff, or does it all just work its way out as they decompose?

Michael: Yes. Look, breakdown does take nutrients, but I think that is a short-term thing. I think pH is something that's under-tested anyway. I would be shocked if more than 10% of the listeners knew the pH of their soil. People just don't test for pH. I don't test for pH a lot at my house. Now, I know the signs and symptoms that a plant will show when the pH is off. Yes, I don't test for pH at my house on a regular basis.

Doug: If everything is growing good when they're mulched with leaves, we're pretty good. Like you said, you can tell if there's a pH issue if things are not growing the way they should be. There's always a positive in mulching, especially when things dry out.

Michael: Yes. A baseline soil test is good for everybody. Get an idea of where your pH is. Get an idea of the organic content of the soil. We deal with really heavy clay soil around here. There's really no better way to amend that soil than adding organic material. Getting an idea of where you stand on that and that baseline soil test that gives you an idea of nutrients and pH, that's always a good idea.

Doug: Most people know the basic cycle of nature. The tree grows. It puts leaves on in the forest. It drops the leaves. Over the years, that's a nutrient source. For most of our landscapes, at least in the city or neighborhoods, we're, in the most cases, removing those leaves. In that way, we are removing that source of nutrients.

Michael: Right. A lot of things we have to do to trees are because of us. We are the cause of-- A lot of the pruning we have to do is because of us and the things we've built. When we disrupt that natural recycling of nutrients. That is why we have to intervene with fertilization. When we have turf creeping up to the base of these trees, that is not their preferred environment. You look at the soils underneath these trees in a wooded area and just how much better they are, the soils that is, than the soils under our turf that I grow on my front lawn. It's remarkably different.

That recycling of nutrients, tremendous value. We break that cycle by cleaning them all up and growing the turf right up to the base of our trees. We need to utilize the leaves and things for that reason.

Doug: They are a great resource in my garden when I'm making my compost throughout the season. I leave shredded leaves right there. When I put the stuff in from the kitchen, then I put a layer of leaves on top, and then stuff from the kitchen, I'm making this layer. That's browns and greens. They all decompose together and make a great nutrient-rich garden soil amendment.

Michael: Absolutely. I run a two-bin compost system at my house. I have a bin that I'm filling and then a bin that is actively composting. Right now, I'm actually preparing for the fall leaf drop, where I will house some leaves until I'm ready to use them for whatever I use them for. Right now, I'm using up that compost that has been working for the last year. I'm adding it around my blueberry bushes. I'm amending soil in new beds that I'm creating and using that compost up, whether it's as a soil amendment, a top dressing, or whatever else I may use the compost, or even mulch in some cases.

Doug: Mike, I knew I liked you, but then when you said you had a compost pile, this is kismet. We're kindred spirits. When did you start composting and why?

Michael: I started composting. when I really started actively growing vegetables pretty seriously. Honestly, I started actively growing vegetables pretty seriously when I had children. I love to be able to show my kids that we can take a seed, and with a little bit of time and effort, turn it into something we can eat. The first thing we ever grew were radishes. If you ask my wife, I hate radishes, but I grew them anyway because I knew they were really fast to harvest. Three, maybe four weeks from seed to harvest on radishes.

My kids now, they'll go out, they'll grab a radish by the leaves, yank it out of the ground, wash it off under the hose, and eat it in the yard. I knew if I put radishes on a plate, my kids wouldn't even try a bite. To see them go from seed to harvest, my kids get into that. That's when I started getting into composting. Just like throwing out leaves, throwing out all those valuable nutrients that are in your kitchen scrap, it's a waste. It's an absolute waste. It's not that hard.

Doug: The hardest thing for people is just convincing the rest of the family, if you have to, that we're splitting the waste stream now. When they're little like that, my kids, my oldest son is 40. He's turning gray. That's a scary thing. He's never known our household without composting. He just knows the apple cores go here, and recycle goes there, and plastic goes here. That's the difficult thing in just teaching the rest of the family, if you make this transition, that, "Hey, this is a great resource. This is a great way to recycle because we are getting that direct benefit. Recycling our leaves is certainly a positive thing.

Michael: You're taking those scraps. You're putting them in the compost pile and then using that compost. You're saving money on water because the soil is holding more water. You're saving money on fertilization because you don't have to fertilize quite so much. I haul as little green waste off my property as possible. The only thing I have trouble with is grass clipping sometimes. I don't normally bag my grass, but I did seed my lawn very heavily on Labor Day weekend. Before I run the slit seeder, I mow it really short.

Grass, you can mix some of it into compost, but grass in big numbers and big piles doesn't break down very well. Everything else, for the most part, stays on my property. I don't dispose of soil. I don't dispose of plant branches, nothing. It either gets burnt, or in a compost pile, or used as mulch or some other kind of soil covering or amendment.

Doug: As I said, kindred spirits.

Michael: That's right. Yes.

Doug: I'm doing the same thing. Nothing like that ever will leave the property. I'm lucky, though, I've got four acres that it can go anywhere. I know what you mean about the grass clippings, too. When you stack up too much grass clippings, it turns into a sloppy mess. You can do it an inch or two, maybe, but you want it to have air, and you want it to be able to decompose. What do you think are some of the easiest leaves to deal with? In my case, I'm thinking maples. Maples, compared to the oaks, are an easy one to deal with and break down a lot quicker.

Michael: Yes, I like maple leaves. They're not too big. They're not super small like a locust leaf. They're a pain in the neck to try and deal with, too. The other side of that is-- you think about something like an oak or even a sycamore. The sycamore leaves that are blowing all over the place in the fall, they're a pain in the neck. Sometimes, and I have a relatively large walk-behind lawnmower, but those big leaves, if I get a big pile, this thing works more like a snowplow than a lawnmower. I'm just pushing these things into a big pile. I am mindful of how I do it. I'm a bit of a maniac when it comes to it.

In the fall, I'll blow the leaves off a section of my grass and then mow the grass. Then I'll blow the leaves back onto that section and then bag them up. I'm getting as clean a leaf as I can. I want to leave the grass clippings in the grass because, again, another valuable source of nutrients that people are having hauled off of their property. It's just incredibly valuable.

You can find use for all of them. You have a bunch of acreage there. I'm on a quarter acre. I use them all. I use everything I can get. We've talked about this on one of our previous episodes. I'm the guy that's asking his neighbors if I can blow their leaves into my yard. The first time I asked my neighbor that, I think he thought I was nuts. I don't get enough leaves to do what I want to do. I know how valuable they are.

Doug: I can't stand to drive along my road and see bags of leaves waiting to be sent to a landfill because they are such a valuable resource. Is there any other way that you use them that you can think of? Have we covered most of the ways to use them? Turn them into compost? Shred them? Anything else you can think of? In my case, some parts, I have to get them off the driveway. I have to get them off the patio, so they just go over the hill. That's how I'm using mine. That is a great place. When I'm out of my own compost, that's the first place I go. I dig down in there and get that good stuff that's been working on since 1939.

Michael: Yes, mulching them. Going hand-in-hand with that is maybe not. Cutting back all the perennials at the end of fall, letting those things sit in the beds and be a little bit of a soil covering and a place for insects to hang out and stuff. Really, mulch, compost, soil covering, all those kinds of things. At the end of the day, if you've got some left, blow them into a big pile and let your kids jump in them. That is a ton of fun as a dad, watching my kids play around in these leaf piles.

Doug: It's also a good point. You said there was leaving the leaves in the perennial beds. That's a great place for the good bugs to hang out for the winter. Someone first told me that, I was so overjoyed because I had spent so much time trying to get those leaves out of those beds. Now, they're telling us, keep them in there. It's a good thing for the good bugs. I'm on board with that because the least amount of leaves I have to move, the best. One point that you made that I didn't think of were little leaves like that locust tree. I could just imagine having to move those. They've got to be a real pain.

Michael: It's almost futile to try and bag them up. They're working their way down into the turf. When I'm trying to do my leaf collection procedure for my lawn at home, those, and you hit it right on the head, it's those medium-sized leaves that'll stay on top of the grass but aren't so huge that they're getting pushed like a snowplow with your mower. That's where you want to be.

Honestly, Doug, I'm not going to discriminate against leaves. I'll use what I can get. It just so happens that I have a bunch of silver maples around me. Not my favorite tree in the world, but a leaf that is certainly manageable.

Doug: Then let's switch gears real quick and talk a little bit about your season and how it's been going. We're in an extended drought where I'm at, with no rain in the forecast. As a plant person, I say this all the time, droughts are the worst thing. As we're recording this, you're saying you're getting a little bit of rain, huh?

Michael: A little bit, but we've been dry for so long. I think people know this, but maybe not. Soils become almost hydrophobic when they've been dry for a really long period of time. Especially with our heavy clay soils, which are very dense to begin with, a lot of this rain is just running off. You see it, and I have this conversation with people all the time that plant near or under the canopies of big trees, unless you have a really good, slow-soaking rain, that soil is still dry. I guarantee I go out there this afternoon after this rain has stopped, and there is still dry soil out there. You really need that long, slow, extended rain to make a dent in a drought.

Doug: I always get this question. What can I grow underneath a maple and a pine? I always tell them, a bench.

Michael: Yes, it's a good one. I've had some success with hostas. As long as you don't have deer. It's tough. The root system takes up a lot of soil and planting volume. That tree is going to win the battle for water. It does. It stays dry under there.

Doug: With this extended drought we've had here, the deer have stripped just about everything out of the forest up to about six feet. They're desperate. They have no fear of me standing there, that's for sure. They want something to eat. It will be nice when we get some rain here and things get back to normal. We have a normal fall. As you said, just having that mulch on there, whether it's leaves, or compost, or whatever it might be, that makes all the difference in the world.

Michael: It does. It's not just deer, Doug. The rabbits are eating stuff that I typically don't get brows on. I am battling what I think is a large community of groundhogs or else one with a voracious appetite. Just going after different water sources, and a lot of those water sources are the plant material that we grow.

Doug: One little trick that I'm trying is I'm actually putting little dishes of water in the vegetable garden, and that has kept my tomatoes safe for now, but I've been hearing lots of complaints from other gardeners saying the chipmunks, the squirrels, the rabbits, and heaven forbid, the groundhog, they're all looking, like you said, some kind of refreshment.

Michael: Yes. The groundhogs decimated my beets and my Swiss chard, and they eat my parsley. They have an appetite, man. They can absolutely tear through some vegetables.

Doug: One thing for sure, you can't have a garden and have a groundhog because they are almost impossible to fence out. Professional diggers and professional climbers. Professional climber, maybe you could use them in your business.

Michael: That would be nice. I don't know that they can operate a chainsaw, which would be a problem.

Doug: Mike, it was great to talk to you. Great to talk to you about leaves, find out that we're kindred spirits and are composting and vegetable growing. I look forward to talking to you again. As always, I value your information. It was great to talk to you again.

[music]

Michael: Thanks, Doug. Always a pleasure.

Doug: It's always a great conversation with Mike. Now, tree lovers, I want you to do me a favor, tune into the show every Thursday. This is the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster.

I also would like you to subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a show. What should we be covering on this podcast? Let us know. There's two ways to reach us. You can send us an email to podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S-@-D-A-V-E-Y.com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message, and your ideas could be in a future podcast. We'd love to hear from you. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, you've heard it before, trees are the answer.

[00:22:41] [END OF AUDIO]