Upper Cumberland residents can protect their lawns and secure free nutrients this fall by shredding their fallen leaves with a lawn mower instead of bagging them.
Jackson County UT Extension Director Dill Hughes said packing leaves into trash bags removes valuable organic matter from a property.
“When you allow them to lay on your yard and then mulch them with a mower, or use them as mulch in flower beds and around trees, you have the benefit of adding nutrients back to the soil,” Hughes said.
Hughes said unmanaged leaf layers act like plastic tarps, blocking out essential sunlight and killing the living grass organisms underneath over the winter months. Homeowners can use a standard lawn mower to grind foliage into small pieces, though the final leaf particles must be small enough that the grass blades remain visible.
Hughes said mowing and mulching the leaves right before it rains allows the smaller particles to settle into the yard more effectively while the moisture accelerates the breakdown process.
Hughes said standard equipment handles the work cleanly, though upgrading to a specialized blade helps finely slice the debris.
“The normal blades will work on a lawn mower, however there are mulching blades that you can put on your mower and that even helps chop up your grass in the summertime when you’re mowing,” Hughes said.
Hughes said thick layers can alternatively be raked into composting piles or used as a physical weed barrier in landscape beds to suppress spring dandelions. However, homeowners should completely avoid mulching any leaves that show signs of tree disease.
“If you rake those up, you want to burn those,” Hughes said. “That way you burn that disease with it and you’re not perpetually returning that disease pressure back to your lawn or your landscape.”
Hughes said the finely ground debris ultimately acts as free fertilizer and organic material that improves overall soil structure.