Forum home Problem solving
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Falling leaves-loads of em.

Just a quick question about dealing with fallen leaves. 

Until last year we had tiny gardens; this one has a forty-yard hazel hedge along one boundary. Last winter I dealt with the zillions of fallen hazel leaves by daily picking up and bagging them, but that was SO labour intensive.

Could forum contributors please suggest a method I could try which doesn't involves so much hard graft?

Thanks in advance.

«134

Posts

  • cornellycornelly Posts: 970

    Can you run a mower over them, or get a grass rake to rake them up.

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,064

    If they're falling on grass, use the lawn mower to shred and collect them and then bag them as they make excellent compost.

    If not, and you can cope with the look of it, leave them be.  The worms will take them down into the soil over winter and that'll improve the soil in your beds effortlessly.  That's what happens in woods.

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    And don't clear them all up - leave some in some 'untidy areas' - the hedgehogs need them to build their hibernaculums (hibernacula image).

    image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • If you like a bit of hardwork and want to create some homemade compost then collect them up and place in a standard black plastic bag.Tie it up and pierce it with a few holes. Leave it for a year and you will have some quality leaf mould to throw back on your boarders

  • Steve 309Steve 309 Posts: 2,753

    If I had boarders I'd repel them with cutlasses and pistols.image

    On the other hand if I had loads of leaves I'd shove them into a big pile, preferably inside a bit of wire fencing to stop them blowing about and leave them for a year or two.  Less effort than putting them in bags and produces the same lovely leaf mould for beds and borders.

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,888

    tee hee Steve 309,

    I was thinking that's a pretty odd way to treat folk at a boarding school. but I didn't like to say.

    image

    Devon.
  • Steve 309Steve 309 Posts: 2,753

    Or guests in your B & B

Sign In or Register to comment.