Do you rake up your leaves?
With autumn in full swing, piles of golden leaves are beginning to fall at our feet – while they might look pretty, they can be annoying for gardeners.
If they’re covering your lawn, you may be tempted to rake the thick layers of leaves and put them in the bin.
However, according to experts this is actually a waste of time and bad for the environment – the better thing to do is actually to leave them be.
Choosing not to rake fallen leaves has benefits to not only yourself and the planet, but also to wildlife.
The University of Delaware’s College of Agriculture & Natural Resources advises that piles of leaves provide a habitat for creatures including insects, slugs, spiders and possibly even toads and small mammals, NPR reports.
You could be disrupting an entire eco-system simply by trying to make your garden look neater.
As well as providing homes for animals, the leaves are actually helping your grass as they are full of nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen.
Professor and extension specialist in landscape horticulture at the University of Delaware, Susan Barton, told NPR ‘Those nutrients are being returned to the soil.
But probably even more important than that, it’s the organic matter.
‘It’s the fact that you’ve got this tissue that then eventually decomposes and improves the soil health’.
Recently, nature experts are encouraging the approach of ‘leaving leaves’ as they provide free mulch and return organic materials to the soil.
What do you do in your garden? Do you rake up your leaves or leave them where they fall?
