How to make and use leaf mulch in your garden

Most people rake the leaves up and put them in the green bin, which is fair enough because a lawn full of wet leaves looks like a job. The thing is you have just bagged up the best mulch you are going to get all year, and it cost you nothing, so it is worth five minutes to work out what to do with it instead.

What leaf mulch actually is

Walk through any patch of bush and the ground underfoot is soft and springy, and that is a layer of fallen leaves slowly breaking down into the soil. Leaf mulch is the same thing done deliberately, which is shredded leaves spread around your plants instead of left where they landed. It holds moisture in, it keeps the soil temperature steadier, and as it breaks down it feeds the ground underneath it.

Why it is worth the bother

• It holds water in the soil. A mulched bed dries out a lot slower than a bare one, which matters through a Strathalbyn summer more than almost anything else you can do.
• It keeps weeds down. Weed seed needs light and bare ground, so a decent layer of mulch takes both away and you pull a lot less out by hand.
• It steadies the soil temperature. Cooler in summer, a bit warmer through winter, which takes the sting out of both ends for the roots.
• It feeds the soil as it rots down. Organic matter is the thing most local soils are short of, and this is a free supply of it turning up every autumn.

Making it

1. Rake them into a pile. Dry leaves are easier to handle than wet ones, so pick your day if you can.
2. Shred them. Whole leaves mat together into a wet mat that water runs straight off, which is the opposite of what you want. The easiest fix is to run the mower over the pile with the catcher on, and you get shredded leaf and a bit of grass clipping mixed through it, which is a better mulch than either on its own.
3. Spread it 5 to 10 centimetres thick. Thinner than that and weeds come through, thicker and water struggles to get down.
4. Keep it off the stems. Leave a gap of a few centimetres around the base of every plant, because mulch packed against a stem holds damp there and that is where collar rot starts.
5. Top it up. It breaks down, which is the point, so it needs a refresh once or twice a year.

Leaves to keep out of the pile

Anything off a plant that was diseased, because you will just spread it around the garden. Anything that has been sprayed. And gum leaves and pine needles break down very slowly and can sit there for a year looking exactly as they did the day they fell, so they are better off going through the compost first rather than straight onto a bed.

If you have not got trees

Plenty of blocks around here do not have a deciduous tree on them, and that is where a bale comes in. Sugar cane and pea straw both break down faster than bark and both feed the soil while they do it, and pea straw puts a bit of nitrogen back as well. A bagged garden mulch is the tidier option if the bed is somewhere you look at rather than somewhere you work.

A couple of things that make it work better

• Mix leaf mulch through a coarser mulch. The leaf breaks down and feeds, the coarse stuff holds the surface together, and between them the bed stays covered for longer.
• Water the bed before you mulch it, not after. Dry soil under a thick mulch layer stays dry a surprisingly long time.

Shop related products

• Easy Wetta Garden Mulch 50L. A bagged mulch with a wetting agent through it, for beds you want looking tidy.
• Martins Organic Sugar Cane Bale 11kg. Breaks down quickly and feeds the soil while it does.
• Martins Organic Pea Straw Mulch 11kg. The one for veggie beds and roses, because it puts nitrogen back as it rots.
• Neutrog Whoflungdung Mulch 20kg. Composted, so it goes on as mulch and works as a soil conditioner at the same time.

Did you know we also stock the raking gear in the shop, including Gardenmaster and Cyclone leaf rakes, a wide landscapers rake for moving a pile, leaf scoops so you are not doing it by hand, and gardening gloves. None of that is on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.

The bales and the bagged mixes are in the garden centre, and if you are doing a whole front bed we can deliver them for $5 around Strathalbyn or $10 on the regional run, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

More from the garden

• How to keep a summer garden going through a heatwave
• How to make compost at home without it going wrong
• How to get a good lawn with less work

Leaf mulch is the laziest win in the whole garden and I am completely in favour of a lazy win. Ask me in the shop, I am usually there.

Cheers,
Candeece