The Best Way to Dispose of Fall Leaves

Autumn leaves can be quite beautiful on a Sunday afternoon drive, and the musty scent of fallen leaves may evoke pleasant memories of childhood. Leaves in your landscape can be a different story altogether. They must be gathered from the lawn to avoid suffocation of grasses. There are some convenient alternatives to disposing of the leaves on your lawn this fall.

Due to the nature of wooded areas, there is no need to gather and dispose of fallen leaves in such a setting. However, in a cultivated landscape, leaves left to their own devices quickly matt down; blocking necessary light, air, and moisture in the lawn and promote fungal diseases. These things are particularly damaging to bluegrasses, which grow quickly in the fall. So, to protect your lawn, you must keep the leaves off it.

To gather leaves, you can rake or blow them into piles for the city to collect. However, a mulching mower may be just what you’re looking for. Simply use the bagger option to collect the leaf particles that have been reduced to about one-tenth their original size and have been blended with the cut grass. Obviously, a smaller particle mean that less overall space is needed for the leaves and that breakdown occurs more rapidly.
Once you have collected the leaves of autumn, you need a way to dispose of them. Ohio House Bill 592 has mandated that landfills not accept landscape refuse (i.e. leaves) after December 1993. Therefore, it is unacceptable to bag the leaves and haul them away. Besides that, there are definitely some more beneficial and efficient ways to use those leaves you collect.

One of the best ways to dispose of fall leaves is in the compost pile. On a larger lot, an informal compost pile can be set up without any form of confinement. This is an ideal solution if you have an empty corner or out-of-the-way hillside where you can allow the leaves to simply break down. On a small lot, such as the one I have, it is necessary to set up some space constraints. For instance, I have a separate 4’x 9’compost area enclosed by a wire fence. I put all of my fall leaves and grass clippings into this pile and ignore them while they break down from fall to the next spring. Then I turn this pile every 3-4 weeks all summer and when composted, use this material as organic mixture to add to planting beds the following fall or spring. If you don’t want to use your space in this manner, you can also set up mini-composting units by placing leaves in garbage bags, adding a few cups of water, with about one-eighth cup of fertilizer mixed in and allowing the leaves to decompose in this manner. If you choose to do this, make sure you leave a decent opening at the top of the bag and some holes in the sides for air to circulate. Otherwise, you can build up some by-products that are harmful, rather than beneficial, to your plants.

Another option is to place the leaves in the “no-man’s land” between your lot and your neighbor’s as long as it is not visually unappealing. If there are plants in this area, use the leaves as a mulch material, taking care not to pile them too close to the plants’ stems. In open areas, the leaves can be stacked to a depth of three to five feet since they will pack down. Also, it is perfectly all right to use fall leaves as mulch material for bigger perennials and planting beds as long as you are careful of depth to avoid suffocation of the plants. Leaves, in moderate amounts will not harm your groundcovers wither and do not need to be gathered it they’re not more than half of the stem height deep.

Finally, four to six inches of leaves worked in the top 8-10” of your garden can do wonderful organic things in the soil for the next year’s crops.

Used in this way, autumn leaves become an important part of making landscapes greener and healthier and that also makes dealing with them tolerable and can also benefit our entire environment and save landfill space.