Do I need to clean up fallen leaves in the garden? Is it necessary to remove plant debris from the garden in the fall? Is it necessary to remove fallen leaves in the fall.
Every year, in late October - early November, gardeners have seasonal work- cleaning the garden from fallen leaves. But many gardeners are wondering: Is it worth it to remove the leaves at all ?, What to do with them? Where to put these huge piles of leaves - burn them, take them to the forest, store them in compost heaps, mulch beds and flower beds with them, or even bury them in the far corner of the site?
Adherents of classical garden cleaning advise to carefully clean the garden from fallen leaves, because, as fallen leaves, it is an excellent place for wintering numerous garden pests-insects that successfully winter in a warm secluded place, as well as fallen leaves are a breeding ground for many pathogens and fungi, especially if your trees were affected by various diseases during the season.
They suggest storing fallen leaves in a compost heap, where the leaf litter cakes and rots well, turning into a great fertilizer for your yard.
Here in Kyiv, for example, on Obolon, janitors rake fallen leaves into heaps, which are then taken out to special compost pits. They rot there and later serve as compost for flower beds and flower beds. After all, Kyiv is famous in the world for its parks and squares.
Supporters organic farming do not agree that the garden needs cleaning in autumn. They are of the opinion that fallen leaves protect the roots of trees from cold weather and, when decomposed, improve the structure of the soil and its composition.
Let me give you an example, in 2010 the Moscow government developed a whole concept for improving the structure of the soil in parks and squares, based on the opinion of environmentalists that the leaves, decomposing in the soil, fertilize the roots of trees nutrients. This will hinder various diseases trees in gardens and squares and prolong the life of green plantings.
Fallen leaves are not only an excellent fertilizer, but also serve as an excellent food for earthworms and beneficial microorganisms, which improve soil structure with their activities.
In autumn, fallen leaves can also be used to cover the flower beds and beds where the cultivation was carried out. winter sowing or landings. You can also mulch beds and flower beds with fallen leaves, digging them a little into the soil.
Based on the foregoing, I conclude that the issue of fallen leaves in the garden should be decided at the personal discretion of the gardener. If the gardener is not prevented from walking around the site by rustling leaves underfoot, why not. At my summer cottage, I carefully clean the lawn from leaves, but sometimes I leave it on the beds until spring. This will not hurt, especially if you cover strawberries and strawberries with them.
The real owner (hostess) always has order on the site and nothing will be lost, and the garden receives the necessary support in the form of high-quality compost, regular watering, imported land and top dressing (fertilizers).
My wife is cleaning the lawn
Despite this, there are several important points Every gardener should know:
Do not leave carrion (rotten fruits with fruit trees) under fruit trees and bushes. It is better to immediately dispose of the carrion in a compost heap, you can take it out of the site or bury it in the far corner of the site;
If your garden has suffered from various diseases this season, scab, coccomycosis or powdery mildew, for example, then the fallen leaves must be removed. Since many pathogens are stored in fallen leaves. Therefore, it is advisable to either take the fallen leaves from diseased trees outside the site or burn them, but in no case should they be put in a compost heap. Someone may object to me that in the process of decay, pathogens will successfully die in a few years, but I think that this is not worth doing - it is better to burn;
The lawn must be cleared of fallen leaves. AT winter period under a layer of snow, uncollected leaves from the lawn turn into a compress, which in turn harms the quality of the lawn. Under such a compress, the grass rots. In the spring after overwintering on the lawn appear yellow spots. Therefore, in the fall, the lawn must be cleaned of fallen leaves, as well as aeration and scarification.
That's all! Wish you, pleasant hassle garden and lawn care.
Bring back our leaves! say the locals.
- Stop cutting the budget. Formerly leaves they didn’t clean it, and now suddenly they began to interfere with someone!
Every year, in late October - early November, Moscow janitors have a seasonal job - cleaning lawns from fallen leaves. Many residents think: Is it worth it to remove the leaves at all? What to do with them? Take out? What to do with these huge piles of leaves - burn them, dump them in the forest, store them in compost heaps, mulch beds and flower beds with them, or even bury them? Leave to rot on the grass as fertilizer?
1. Proponents of organic farming do not agree that lawns need cleaning in the fall. Fallen leaves protect the roots of trees from the cold and decompose, improve the structure of the soil and its composition.
The foliage is not only an excellent fertilizer, but also serves as an excellent food for earthworms and beneficial microorganisms, which improve the soil structure by their activity.
Adherents of classical cleaning are advised to carefully clean the area from fallen leaves, because fallen leaves are an excellent place for wintering numerous garden insect pests that successfully winter in a warm secluded place. Also, fallen leaves are a breeding ground for many pathogens and fungi, especially if the trees were affected by various diseases during the season.
2. From my school memories, I remember very well labor lessons, when we worked in the fall - we picked up a rake with a stretcher and cleaned out all school grounds from foliage. Labor paints a person, the Trudovik told us. True, in our years, foliage was not stuffed into plastic bags, and immediately carried to dumpster.
3. Foliage foliage strife. All of us in childhood fooled around with fallen leaves, threw them, shoved them with our feet and buried nerds in them. But this concerned only fresh foliage. After the snow melted in the spring, few people were in a hurry to play with the foliage that had lain all winter.
4. I read several articles on the Internet on this subject. Leaf harvesting has both pros and cons. Here everything is explained well on the example of the city, and not suburban area: Cleaning up fallen leaves in the city. Do they need to be cleaned up?
5. There is no single answer to this question, since the cleaning of leaves must be approached individually for each object of green spaces, taking into account the classes and categories of destination and placement in urban areas. After all, there is a big difference between the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin and Elk Island.
6. I was wondering how things are with foliage in Germany, where my old friend lives. It turns out that in all in public places(boulevards, squares, yards and small parks) every year they collect foliage from lawns, and it has always been so. This raises no questions for anyone.
7. Where are our leaves taken to? It is sent by truck to the landfills near Moscow intended for municipal solid waste. At these landfills, the foliage is simply tamped in pits and sprinkled with earth: after a while, the rotted leaves turn into soil.
10. Here's what you don't need to do at all - so it's burning foliage. Fallen leaf smoke contains high levels of lead, mercury and other compounds. heavy metals.
11. The leaves were always removed, just before there were piles of leaves that the children happily kicked and which were carried by the wind. Today it is plastic bags.
12. Playground with natural surface.
13. Playground after cleaning.
14. Do you think it is necessary to remove the foliage from the lawns, or is it better to leave it as it is, and spend the budget money "better"?
Fallen autumn leaves appear now in one corner of the garden, then in another. I really don’t feel like running from apple trees to cherries for 2-3 months, and then to mock orange, and every gardener has ever thought about whether to clean the leaves in the fall in the country or to entrust everything to nature.
If you have not yet decided on the answer to this question, let's see what happens in the garden with foliage during the autumn-winter period and whether you need these processes.
What happens to fallen leaves in the garden
If you think that it is not too late to remove the foliage in spring, but cold period it will lie quietly under the trees and become an additional mulch, then you make 5 mistakes at once:
- Foliage - bad material for mulch, because, when wet, the leaves become caked and turn into a dense thin layer, which does not let air to the roots and does not allow the earth to evaporate moisture, that is, left without additional shelter The leaves help the plants die.
- Most often, eggs are laid on fallen leaves. harmful insects and their larvae also pupate. With the onset of spring, at the first rays of the sun, the pests will wake up from sleep, and they will not even have to go far for prey - the native tree or bush is already here, you can begin to grow and reproduce.
- In addition, the leaves are often affected by fungal diseases - powdery mildew, anthracnose, gray rot, late blight. The spores of their pathogens overwinter well and, once in the soil, disperse even more actively in your garden in the new season.
- Bacterial diseases are less common in the garden, but their probability cannot be ruled out. Rotting leaves are a great environment for the spread of bacteria, and those that have arisen in winter sunburn on trees, they become that weak point through which bacteria enter a favorable environment and begin to destroy plants.
- The leaves that have fallen on the lawn rot during the winter, but not alone, but along with a section of the lawn on which bald spots appear in the spring. The affected area will not be able to recover on its own, and you will have to first remove the dead grass, and then sow a new one.
Where to remove foliage from the garden and vegetable garden
Supporters of eco-farming adhere to the version that removing foliage from under apple trees, pears and other fruit trees either not needed at all, or needed in compost heaps. We will reject the first version immediately for the reasons already listed, but we will consider the second in more detail.
So, composting fallen leaves can be considered reasonable only on the condition that your garden has absolutely healthy trees, and you have carried out all seasonal insecticide treatments in a timely manner. Are you sure that along with the foliage you are not putting spores of fungal diseases, insect eggs, or harmful bacteria into the compost heap? Then feel free to layer the foliage with earth or manure and leave it - in two years you will receive excellent fertilizer.
But if in health own garden if you are not sure, then you should not aggravate the situation and it is better to take all the collected leaves outside the site and burn them.
If there is a forest area near your dacha, you can take the collected foliage there, but remember that this only applies to foliage - it is strictly forbidden to do this with garbage or household waste.
How to remove tree leaves
Even for such a simple, at first glance, business as cleaning up fallen leaves, certain skills and special tools are needed.
You will need:
- traditional rake;
- fan rake;
- wheelbarrow;
- garbage bags with a volume of 100 liters or more or a spunbond sheet measuring 3 × 3 m;
- gardening gloves.
After you have prepared everything you need, choose a sunny day and get down to business. Tune in advance what the leaves are with different cultures fly around in different time, moreover, gradually, so a single cleaning will not work. It is impossible to postpone cleaning in the garden until all the trees and bushes are covered, if only because the snow may fall before this happens, and your site will remain uncleaned.
- Use a traditional rake to gather the leaves under the trees and rake them into heaps.
- Clean the area under the bushes with a fan rake.
- You will have to remove fallen leaves from the lawns several times, and it is advisable to use a fan rake for this - they do not injure the grass so much and collect the litter more carefully.
- Remove leaves from gutters, roof slopes, plums.
- Fold the leaves collected in heaps into bags or use a wheelbarrow to bring them to a spread sheet of spunbond.
- Carry the leaves to a fire, compost heap, or take them out into the woods.
If your site is well protected from the wind and leaves fall late, you can speed up this process after the first frost. Put a fabric mitten on your hand and smoothly run your hand along the branches from the bottom up, grabbing them lightly. Most of leaves will crumble under your hands, and those that remain can be removed in a similar way in a week or two or left on a tree.
Of course, it is up to you to decide whether to remove the foliage from the garden in the fall. But believe me experienced gardeners Don't waste your November weekend on this. Timely cleaning of litter allows you to minimize diseases in the garden, get rid of a large part of harmful insects, and start spring with more pleasant work.
This is very interest Ask, the discussion on which has been going on for several decades. And both arguing parties present their strong arguments. As I understand it, it is important to consider different areas when deciding on the removal or preservation of fallen leaves.
First, consider this problem for the city. The leaves of trees growing on the streets of cities have the ability to absorb harmful emissions from vehicles (for example, benzopyrene), from industrial enterprises and they are no longer harmless. Fallen leaves, if left for the winter, will absorb the salt that is sprinkled on the streets, and oil products that fall into the soil from vehicles. Such leaves are unsuitable even for compost, because they are saturated with salts of heavy metals. And it is clear that fallen leaves need to be removed on city streets.
Parks, forest parks, urban groves, in general, large arrays of tree plantations, are less susceptible to pollution from harmful emissions. Therefore, here you can admire the golden autumn, wander through the multi-colored carpet of fallen leaves, and collect a herbarium.
Leaves need to be removed from the paths after a while, because they will take on a crust from the rains, turn black, and the paths will look untidy. But under the trees in such areas, a layer of foliage can be left.
At the dachas, at their household plots, where there are no busy highways, fallen leaves should be actively used as fertilizer, soil baking powder. It needs to be collected, composted, and then applied to your beds. You can make fallen leaves in greenhouses. Can be used as a covering material. But it should only be borne in mind that harmful insects can hide under the fallen leaves for the winter, which are activated in the spring and will harm your trees or berries.
Comparing urban plantations with natural forests is at least incorrect. In forests where there is no human chemistryquot ;, fallen leaves play a positive role.
If you leave the leaves on the asphalt paths, then under the influence of rain they will rot and there will be dirt.
In summer cottages, fallen leaves can not be removed, it will soak and serve as a natural fertilizer. But not all leaves have time to be processed under the snow into fertilizer, so it’s better to remove them all the same.
Depending on where to remove the leaves)
From the tracks of course need, from the lawns too.
Foliage that has fallen in a dense layer works like mulch (mulch is) and it will crush the grass, that is, if it is a bed, then the foliage is there will be beneficial and if we are interested in aesthetics - flowerbeds of different landscaping, then the foliage will interfere there.
We traditionally cover the beds with winter garlic with foliage - the foliage shows itself very well there.
In the program of Channel 1 of October 13, 2015, this issue was dealt with. Residents of one Moscow yard complained to the local council that the janitors of the management company cleanly remove all the leaves from them, leaving bare ground.
It turns out that this harms the roots of trees and impoverishes the earth. After all, the leaves contain organic matter and many useful trace elements. If the leaves are removed from year to year, the earth will be depleted. In their yard, even in many places, bald patches have formed where grass does not grow.
Although it is very good to hide in fallen leaves for all sorts of harmful bugs, but in fact in wild nature Forests live on their own and nothing, everything is balanced.
By the way, after a complaint from the residents, it turned out that Moscow has established norms for cleaning leaves. It is supposed to clean them 25 meters away from large roads, 5 meters from small ones, and in forest park areas only paths are cleaned.
The deputy for housing and communal services from the council even said that Management Company can punish the janitors for this (unless they themselves gave them such an order).
And he called the corresponding resolution, only his name was not remembered, only the number 743.
I believe that in city parks, where leaves fall on lawns and under trees, in no case should they be removed. Fallen leaves are protective layer, nutrition for the soil. How many times I have observed - in parks where the foliage is completely swept, trees die, both very young and very old. Why do parks sweep the leaves in autumn? She does not interfere with anyone, she only pleases the eye and protects and nourishes the trees and the soil. I believe that this should not be done. Leaves can be swept off the sidewalks where people walk, but you should not sweep everything baldly.
I think that in parks, the alleys of which are covered with fallen golden maples, it is not worth it. That's very beautiful. Especially if you are standing in front of the alley, and somewhere the sun is shining, then it begins to seem that the leaves seem to be burning and glowing. That's very beautiful! It is very pleasant to walk along such alleys.
But in the city, I think it is necessary. Since there is wind and rain, and all this scatters wherever it goes, and it doesn’t come out very beautifully.
Fallen leaves should only be removed lawn grass in parks and other places. Under normal conditions, where they grow ordinary trees- it is quite possible not to remove the leaves - they will dissolve on their own over time and will give useful material earth.
Watching where. See how you're used to. For example, on asphalt it is better to clean it so that there is no debris. In the garden, not necessarily. In the spring, the earth will be dug up - there will be fertilizer. But again, it depends on the composition of the land on your site.
It is necessary to remove fallen leaves on roads and sidewalks and lawns, because when they are wet, it is easy to slip on them and get injured. But in parks and forest parks they don’t clean up, because there the foliage serves as fertilizer for the trees. In the garden in the country, it is necessary to collect and burn the foliage due to the presence of insects in them, which are spoiled by garden trees.
Fallen leaves are an excellent shelter for any larvae, but on the other hand, flowers and strawberries can be covered with this foliage for the winter. Quince trees grow in our country, the foliage falls from them for a very long time, but does not rot. So I collect these leaves from the paths and cover my beds with strawberries with them - I have never frozen. Quince leaves do not decompose until next summer.
In public places, it is worth removing the fallen leaves, but in places where the foliage does not interfere and does not spoil the view, it is not worth it, as the fallen leaves will serve as fertilizer for the soil