Leave the Leaves

Last September, I wrote a blog post titled "To till, or not to till...I think I'll try not to."  One of the pledges I made was:

I also pledge to start raking up the leaves in my yard every fall and putting them on the garden.

And last fall, with RAF's help, I did get the leaves raked.  Some went in the compost bins, and some were left on the little east garden in an effort to help improve that soil.  I was feeling pretty good about the leaf thing.  I was just waiting for the leaves to drop off the trees this fall so I could get busy raking.

Now I had already started growing some native plants in my flower beds (remember "The Flowerbed to Hide the Ugly Stmpe?") and while browsing channels on YouTube looking for information about native plants, I discovered some really interesting ones, including "Native Plant Channel."  That's where I first learned about Doug Tallamy.

Dr. Tallamy's interview with Lourdes (host of Native Plant Channel) emphasized why planting natives is so critical.  And because I watched that interview, other videos with Dr. Tallamy started popping up in my recommended video feed.  In this interview with "Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour," he talks about how important leaf litter is to soil health.

  

Maybe I didn't need to be raking up the leaves after all.  😕

I found myself torn between wanting the leaves for my garden and compost, and wanting to leave them for the insects and soil invertebrates.

Then I watched a video from the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia about native trees.  The speaker talked about the awful things we do to our trees; the importance of leaving the leaves; how to properly mulch; and more.

The video left me feeling really sad and guilty about my beautiful trees.  I actually had some of them topped back in 2020, because I was afraid they would fall on the house.  I guess that's really bad for trees, and I just hope it doesn't kill the old black walnut tree. 

The willow oak in the front yard is a beautiful tree in spite of being hit by a catalpa tree that was blown over in a storm back in 2019.  But I've often wondered how it even survives when the soil underneath it looks so dry and compacted all the time.  Grass doesn't grow under the tree...it's just bare hard dirt with some moss on it.

And it's the same way with the red maples and the giant red oak out by the road.  (I plan to write a post about that oak in the coming days.)  The dirt under all of them is so hard and compacted - it doesn't look like the water would soak in much at all.

Maybe I'm wrong about everything with these trees.  Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong about things, and it most certainly won't be the last.  But what would happen if, instead of trying to grow lawn under the trees, we put a big ring of leave mulch around the trees?  What if I just leave their leaves to cover that bare soil, and see what happens?

So that's what I've decided to do.  This year, I'm going to leave the leaves.

One of the challenges I've already come up against is that without something to help catch them and hold them in place, the leaves just blow away.  We've had very strong winds the past few days, and lots of them have already blown into the field.  But this afternoon I raked up enough leaves to cover the dirt almost out to the drip line of the willow oak with about two or three inches.  And for now, I've carried some old tree limbs and rotted bits of log over to the tree and made a half-circle around it to try to contain those leaves.

If there were some groundcover under the trees that would help.  I'll need to do some research to see what might grow under them, and then slowly start putting in some plantings.  I plan to start with violets and native strawberries under the willow oak.  For the red oak, there's a much larger area to cover, so I think I'll put down some cardboard as sheet mulch in a few spots, then plant some native shrubs like spicebush (Lindera benzoin) and blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium).  I guess that plan will hinge on how whether or not my cuttings root! 

What I do NOT want to happen is for the area to be taken over by privet and Japanese honeysuckle again.  We just got rid of a big patch of that year before last, and I don't want to ever let it get started in the yard again!

Poor RAF does love his lawn, and I hope he won't mind this change too much.  I think so long as I stay away from the beautiful Zoysia grass, he'll be ok with it.  I hope so, anyway.