Leafcycling is the easiest and eco-friendly way of dealing with your Fall leaves!
How to Leafcycle: The best way to leafcycle is to run a mulching mower over your leaves, and then just leave those mulched leaves right on the lawn. If you don't have a mulching mower, just take off your bag and run over your leaves twice. It's that simple.
Why you should Leafcycle: Leafcycling saves you lots of work because there’s no raking, bagging, or piling your leaves.
The benefits of Leafcycling: Mulched or shredded leaves left on your lawn through the winter provide a number of benefits for your lawn. They:
- Enrich the soil’s nutrients by feeding the microbes that inhabit a healthy lawn
- Improve the lawn’s root systems making your grass drought and disease resistant
- Reduce weeds in the Spring grass
- Conserve water by reducing run off
- Preserve butterfly and moth larvae on the leaves, and this can bring more of these to your yard in the Spring, and more birds as well.
Plus, leaving those leaves on your lawn reduces organic matter in the landfill, and that benefits all of us!
What to do if you have lots of leaves: After half of your leaves are down, run the lawn mower over your leaves once to chop them, then run it again with the bag on to collect them, or rake them up. Dig them into your garden as you prepare it for winter, or mulch around your shrubs, hedges, and trees to keep the soil moist and protect the plants’ roots. When the rest of your leaves fall, leafcycle those and leave them on your lawn.A bit of research: A twenty-year study by Michigan State University has shown two major benefits to leafcycling. First, lawns required much less fertilizer to achieve the spring “green up”. Second, was NO WEEDS, according to their study. The decomposing pieces of leaves cover up the bare spots between turf plants (grass) that are an excellent opening for weed seeds to germinate. Experience has shown that nearly a 100% decrease in dandelions and crabgrass can be obtained after adopting the practice of leafcycling for three years.