By CHRISTINE LYNCH
Many songs have been written about autumn leaves, yet it’s a different tune when you’re facing a yard full of brown leaves. The upbeat approach is to tackle the job with a large rake and make some stacks for the family to plow through. Still, after all the raking, bagging, bending, and stretching, sooner or later the job will get old.
To help out, there are labor-saving devices on the market, such as mulching lawn mowers that shred grass clippings and leaves, and there’s a mower attachment that collects clippings into a bag. Some people enjoy wielding leaf blowers that swoosh and bunch the leaves into convenient piles (hopefully not into the street or onto someone else’s property).
There are as many approaches to garden care as there are people tending their yards. After mowing, some people swear that grass clippings should stay where they fall, others rake up every blade. Same with leaves: some don’t fret if leaves remain around their property, while others want a pristine yard. Which leads to another decision: how to dispose of any gardening materials? Should you compost them onsite, haul them to a recycling center that handles brush and leaves, or merely trash them?
What To Do With
Lawn Clippings?
Bryan DeCoste of DeCoste Landscaping offers fine landscape maintenance and design. The Massachusetts native, who moved to the Cape in the mid-1980s, ran the well-stocked and popular Cataumet Garden Center for many years. He offered advice to homeowners, saying that a good lawn length to maintain is between two and a half and three inches. “If you’re using a mulching mower, then leave the clippings distributed on the lawn. This adds beneficial organic matter.” However, if the grass is on the long side and you don’t have a mulcher, “that could build a thatch layer and smother the lawn.” So, rake up as much of the excess as you can and toss it onto a compost heap.
He added, “After the final mowing of the year, it’s helpful to add lime and fertilizer sometime in October.” This works into the lawn and “helps rejuvenate it with the spring warmth.” Also, keep raking all leaves from the lawn, which could kill the grass. “Otherwise, come the spring you’ll have bald patches and have to re-seed.”
Bagged Leaves Wanted
About those falling leaves, when you’ve finally cleared the lawn, what can be done with them? One option is to bring them over to a residence seeking bagged leaves. New homeowners and people with vast gardens often place a large sign, Bagged Leaves Wanted, by their roadway asking for leaves. So those wishing to rid their yard of leaves can simply gather leaves into sturdy, clean, large plastic bags and haul them over. Still, don’t you wonder why do these people want more leaves? Don’t they have enough leaves of their own?
C.L. Fornari, gardener extraordinaire (www.Gardenlady.com) is a Cape-based gardening consultant, speaker, and writer. She helped to explain the Bagged Leaves Wanted signs. “Thirty-five years ago, my mother would drive around picking up bags of leaves that others put at the end of their driveways for the trash company to haul away.” Back in the 1970s, she said her mother “was a big believer in putting a heavy, permanent mulch layer over gardens for weed prevention and soil amendment.” For information on this technique, she recommended gardening books written by Ruth Stout, such as “How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back: A New Method of Mulch Gardening,” and “The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book.”
“Unfortunately, fertilizer companies have worked hard to convince people that their products are more effective than Mother Nature.” She added that “leaves are higher in mineral content than any manure.”
Ms. Fornari points out that homeowners spend money to have their leaves removed in the fall; then in the spring they also pay to have their yard mulched. She suggested they use those leaves. “Homeowners don’t realize they can bypass the compost pile completely!” Chopping leaves, by merely running a lawnmower over them can be “applied directly onto shrub borders, perennial beds, and vegetable gardens in the fall.” Her good advice is not to get rid of your leaves, “They are gold for your garden.”
Chopped leaves make effective mulch around plants and young trees. About a two-inch protective layer of chopped leaves tamps down weeds and keeps roots shielded when the temperatures begin their wintry plummet. Extra leaves also are a great addition to compost piles because they provide nitrogen, which is lacking in the sandy composition of our soil.
If you have any questions about mowing, raking, mulching, composting and pretty much anything regarding a Cape Cod yard, the expert services of the Master Gardeners are only a phone call away. A gardening hotline, funded through the Cape Cod Extension Service (www.capecodextension.org), is active throughout the growing season, March through November. Call 1-508-375-6700 between 9 AM and 3 PM (check website for the scheduled days).
How Long Does it Take for Leaves to Decompose?
One man’s yard waste is another man’s gardening treasure.
Native Cape Codder Emir Smaykiewicz is the owner of Greener Image Landscaping on Sandwich Road in East Falmouth. His company, which covers the entire Cape, the Islands, and Plymouth, provides residential/commercial landscaping, irrigation, stone and brick work, and paving services. In the landscaping business for 20 years, Mr. Smaykiewicz said that “it takes a good two years for leaves to break down, that’s to the consistency of top soil.” He suggested that regular turning of the compost helps to aerate it and break it down. “Also, adding lime accelerates the process.”
If you don’t wish to nurture your own compost heap, then another option is to haul your grass clippings, leaves, and brush over to the Blacksmith Farms Inc. The facility is at 716 Blacksmith Shop Road in East Falmouth. Open Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 4 PM and those same hours on Saturdays from April through October. People from Bourne, Cotuit, Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich, and South Plymouth can bring in stumps, brush, leaves, and grass, clean of debris and trash. They also sell mulch, loam, wood chips, compost, clean fill and sand. Call or check their website for details.
For those of you who don’t care much for yardwork or simply don’t have the time, hiring a landscaper is a solid way to maintain your property. In addition to fertilizing, mowing, clipping, et cetera, they also clean and haul off excess materials.
As for me, I don’t mind dealing with the autumn leaves. That’s because once we stow the rake in the basement corner, I know that we’ll all too soon be bringing up the snow shovel.