Autumn Gardening Tips: By Stephanie Summerell

Autumn is such a busy time of year in the garden. The list of tasks seems endless and on top of that the trees are shedding their leaves, creating yet another one. It’s easy to regard the collection of fallen leaves as a nuisance and consign them to the wheelie bin in irritation. But I would like to encourage you to view them as a valuable resource that is not to be wasted.

If left to decompose, leaves turn into leafmould. Nature’s patient, unseen decomposers set to work and together with time produce a wonderful compost. I think of it as gardener’s gold.

Oak, beech and hornbeam leaves make the best quality leafmould and break down the quickest. Thicker leaves such as sycamore, walnut, horse chestnut and sweet chestnut take longer. Conifer and evergreen leaves can take 2-3 years to decompose, so are best avoided unless you’re very patient!

Collect leaves when they are wet, or sprinkle with water to dampen them and leave them in a shady spot in an out of the way corner. If you have the room you can buy or make a wire mesh container for your leaves. Otherwise you can buy purpose-made sacks made from loosely woven jute from most garden centres now. They hold an amazing amount of leaves and have the added advantage of being bio-degradable. Or place your leaves into a large, black polythene sack such as a bin liner. You will need to punch a few holes in the sides and bottom of it or your leaves will become a slimy mess. Tie the top loosely. Bear in mind that the volume of leaves will reduce to between a quarter and a third as it becomes leafmould. You can’t possibly overdose your soil on it though so make as much as you can! Bags can be stacked if you’re short of space.

The leaves should have decomposed after about a year and you can use the resulting leafmould as a mulch. After another year it can be dug in to improve your soil or even used as a seed sowing compost.

With autumn leaves in such plentiful supply why not work your own bit of magic? Turning nature’s discards into leafmould does feel a little like alchemy!