How to Mulch Leaves: Cheap Mulch for Your Landscaping

Published: November 28, 2011
By: Lisa Kaplan Gordon
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Don’t toss out those fallen leaves you’ve spent weekends raking and blowing. Autumn leaves make low-cost mulch and fertilizer to protect and feed your landscaping all winter.

Fallen leaves are nature's mulch — just spread them at the base of your trees and shrubs. Image: Jean & Oliver/Flickr

Now that your trees are bare, make the most of those fallen leaves. Here are a few ways to recycle leaves to protect and feed your landscaping all winter.

Mulch

Mulching plants and shrubs is not just a spring chore. Your landscaping needs winter protection, too.

Autumn leaves are a low-cost mulch that insulate roots from frigid temperatures and hold moisture in the ground, which is vital to plant health in winter.

After you’ve removed dead blooms or rotting vegetables, rake or blow leaves into garden beds, and mound them around the base of shrubs and trees. To quicken decomposition and feed plants all winter, run leaves through a shredder or run over them with a mower.

Composting leaves

Rotting leaves and pine needles make great compost. Just throw them onto your compost pile, and douse them with water before you drain your outdoor spigot for the winter.

Or, bag up the leaves and throw them into a corner of your yard. If you have a mild winter, dark plastic will catch the rays and cook the leaves, speeding up decomposition. Come spring, dump the rotting leaves on your compost pile, and save the bags for next fall’s cleanup.

Leaves as fertilizer

Instead of raking or blowing leaves, run your mower over them a couple of times, and let them decompose and nourish your lawn.

What do you think of using leaves as mulch?

Lisa Kaplan Gordon

Lisa Kaplan Gordon is a HouseLogic contributor and builder of luxury homes in McLean, Va. She’s been a Homes editor for Gannett News Service and has reviewed home improvement products for AOL.

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In our NJ town, we have to rake leaves to the curb and the township sucks them up and mulches them at the town dump where residents can come and take as much as they want. We cannot bag them and put them out with the trash. Last fall, after years of doing just that, we rakes as much as we could and what was left at the end, we did run over with the lawnmower, I think next year we are going to try and use it in the gardens as described above. We have been using a mulching mower for years so we haven't bagged grass leaves since the late 80's. Our lawn really benefits from it in the long run and it's easier on the back.
Posted by Janet on March 24, 2012