adams.henry•1mo agoProlific Poster

Can we talk about leaving leaves in the yard all winter?

I've seen three neighbors on my street in Decatur who just let their leaves sit from October straight through to March. One guy told me it's 'natural fertilizer' and better for the soil. But I pulled up a patch of his grass last week and it was all dead and mushy underneath. My yard guy says heavy leaf layers trap moisture and kill the lawn for good. Does anyone else think this no-rake trend is actually hurting our yards more than helping?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie7941mo ago

Yeah that's been bugging me too. I have a neighbor who does the same thing and his yard looks terrible by spring. The whole 'free fertilizer' idea sounds good on paper but a thick mat of wet leaves just suffocates everything underneath. This is actually a real problem not just an opinion thing. Leaves that sit all winter block sunlight and trap moisture which breeds fungus and disease in the soil. My grass came back patchy one year after I tried leaving them once and I had to reseed the whole front yard. A thin layer is fine but people who let them pile up inches deep are asking for trouble.

luna_craig581mo ago

Free fertilizer" is actually right though, you just have to shred them first so they break down properly instead of matting. My neighbor mulches his with the mower every week in fall and his lawn looks better than anyone on the block come spring.

the_susan1mo ago

So @jamie794, what do you actually do when a neighbor swears by the leaf pile method and their yard looks fine to them? Because I'm dealing with the same thing and I honestly think some people just have different standards for what 'fine' looks like. Tbh, I've noticed the folks who leave the leaves tend to be the same ones who let their grass get super long between mows during summer, so maybe their lawn was already a mess to begin with. The whole moisture trapping thing is real though, I lost a whole patch of St. Augustine one year after a wet winter under a leaf mat. Ngl, I'm starting to think the only way this works is if you commit to shredding them into tiny pieces with the mower every week, not just dump and forget.