Falling Leaves
Memory’s a funny thing. I was watching the Remembrance Day Service last Saturday, and as the evening came to a close and red poppies drifted down from the ceiling, childhood memories flooded back of shuffling through drifts of fallen leaves on autumn pavements, and of looking for sweet chestnuts in the New Forest, where the earth was springing under our feet with the energy of centuries of leaf mould.
The rosy-hues of autumn can lend our trees the resonance and texture of a Degas pastel, bringing a seasonal beauty that looks particularly stunning when set against a clear blue sky. When the leave finally fall to the ground it’s a chance to see close up the unique spectrum of colours that only Mother Nature can display en masse, and get away with.
For some of us however, leaves bring an altogether different scenario. “How was your weekend?” you chirrup to neighbour / colleague / fellow traveller on a Monday morning….”Oh, busy… you know… it’s the leaves…..sweeping up the leaves….bagging up the leaves…taking the bags to the tip…. burning the leaves…..
Honestly, what a waste of time and effort!
If, like me, you have a garden with soil that would not look out of place on Bournemouth beach, then those fallen leaves are an opportunity to provide your garden with some much needed soil structure. Heaped up into a uniformly shaped container – wire mesh ones are ideal, those untidy offerings will slowly dwindle down over a year or so into a crumbly mass that will help gardens like mine retain water in summer. Conversely, if you have inherited a predominantly clay site, then leaf mould will help transform those sticky slabs on your spade into something altogether more friable.
If dealing with them separately is not on your list of priorities, dry leaves, (providing essential carbon,) can be used on the compost heap to mix in with the green, nitrogenous stuff. For years I followed Lawrence D. Hills’s advice (He of Grow Your Own Fruit and Vegetables fame) and never put any leaves in my compost bin. Then I read John Roulac’s Backyard Composting and never looked back.
You don’t even have to be that organised. I have a huge tree in one corner of my garden, one of the malus brigade, bordered by a substantial stone wall. Most years I simply rake most of its fallen leaves into a pile against the wall, with a few logs for ballast, and after two or three years the rich brown residue gets raked back across the soil and helps lock in the moisture that is constantly under threat from the greedy tree roots. Such is my typically indolent approach to most matters horticultural that I no longer consider myself to be a gardener in the ‘manicuring’ sense, but one who ‘co-operates with Nature.’ So now it isn’t childish footsteps rustling through the leaves outside my window, but a seemingly inexhaustible pair of blackbirds on patrol, gorging themselves with the choice pickings and seeing off all comers – well those with feathers anyway. I tell myself that hedgehogs will bed down for the winter by the stone wall, knowing they won’t be disturbed by zealous raking, and that other creatures will find refuge in the ivy that advances relentlessly along the cracks and joins. Yes, there’s a lot to be said for leaving well alone.
