Low Impact Leaf Management
Current research clearly shows that leaves are a valuable source of nutrients and organic material and are best kept on your property. But how do you utilize this free resource, keep a healthy lawn and maintain a neat appearance? There are a few things to consider first.
The old way of garden maintenance with leaves goes something like this:
- A crew arrives with backpack leaf blowers.
- They spend hours removing every leaf from your beds, removing most of the mulch and all the healthy organic material.
- The leaves are bagged or drug out on a tarp and disposed of like they were toxic waste.
- This leaves your gardens exposed over the winter and encourages weed seeds to take off in Spring.
- And the mulch they blew out and threw away? They will charge you to add more in the spring!
A better way is Low Impact Leaf Management
- Hand-held blowers or rakes are used to remove most of the leaves from the beds if needed, leaving existing mulch and organic material in place.
- Leaves are gathered on the lawn, then mulched with a mower.
- Once mulched up they can be returned to the beds as a fall mulch or if there is more than needed, they can be bagged, taking up much less space.
The end result is the beds are mulched and fed with organic matter and put to bed for the winter.
Spruce Hollow has been using this method with our clients for a few years now and it works out very well. We’ve seen a reduction in weeds, less need for mulch in spring, and healthier gardens.
We would be happy to discuss this service for the Fall season.
