Ep 228 Should they stay or should they go: What should we do with fallen leaves? | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:05

Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Ah, what's that falling outside my window? It's not rain, that's for sure. It's leaves.

Chris Enroth: 00:22

We are starting to lose some leaves. So we're gonna talk today about what to do about all these fall leaves that are starting to filter down to the earth here. And you know I'm not doing this by myself. I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson and Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:39

Hello, Chris. Yes. We've got a few leaves falling here and there. Not too many, but still no rain. Well, I guess we had a little bit yesterday, Monday, but nothing nothing really worth talking about.

Chris Enroth: 00:52

No. It it has been depressingly dry right now. I I do have some leaves. So our our white ash trees that we have in our front yard, they're usually the first ones to turn in in the fall. They often will turn this, like, beautiful kinda purple, maroon to yellow orange color.

Chris Enroth: 01:13

You know, it's like the tree just sort of lights on fire or lights up in the fall. It's not really doing that right now. The leaves are just sort of fallen while they're green, falling while they've turned a little brown. I was, Downtown Quincy, last weekend. All of the trees downtown are starting to lose their leaves.

Chris Enroth: 01:32

They're all planted amongst this, you know, concrete jungle area. They're all scorched. No fall color, but they're all losing their leaves. So the drought is, at least in my neck of the woods, definitely, wrecking havoc, with our fall leaf color display.

Ken Johnson: 01:50

Yeah. In Jacksonville, some of the street trees, particularly maples, are changing, but, like, in our yard, nothing's really the walnut tree in the neighbor's yard that hangs over into our yard, it's starting to turn a little yellow and drop some leaves. But other than that, not a whole lot of leaf drop yet. But

Chris Enroth: 02:09

Yeah. Well, I'm in terms of, like, fall color, you know, there's a couple maps that you can find online. A lot of them that I've seen, like, I know the Farmers Almanac. There's one from, like, the the Great Smoky Mountains, you know, fall prediction map. A lot of them are prediction maps based upon sort of previous climate data.

Chris Enroth: 02:29

There's one called explorefall.com. I'm not sure how accurate, you know, these maps are, but it does seem like they they this particular one is updating it based upon weather data. But it says, at least here for the explore fall map, where I'm at in McDonough County, Illinois, we should be at moderate color based upon the weather data. And then using the fall prediction map from, like, Farmer's Almanac or the Great Smoky Mountains, we should be at kind of patchy color, fall coloration. So we're we're maybe a step or two away from peak color in a normal year, maybe with normal soil moisture conditions.

Ken Johnson: 03:15

Yeah. It looks like Jacksonville is in the moderate color, but at least around my house and looking out the door window at the extension office, we are not we are not in moderate color right now.

Chris Enroth: 03:28

It's a lot of green out there.

Ken Johnson: 03:30

That's what I'll say.

Chris Enroth: 03:32

Lot of green. So so, yeah, leaves are falling. And and I think it it this has become, like, a very seasonal thing. I mean, I think it it pops up in the spring, but it really pops up in the fall. What should I do with my fall leaves?

Chris Enroth: 03:51

And and we've actually run across there has been a study published recently. It came out 03/20/2025. So, I mean, that that's about as recent as you can get when it comes to these types of research. It's in the the journal of the science of the total environment. It's a new journal for me.

Chris Enroth: 04:13

I've never heard of this one. But it it looks like it is published by a couple of entomologists out east at

Ken Johnson: 04:24

Is it Maryland? University of Maryland.

Chris Enroth: 04:27

Mhmm. University of Maryland. And so an entomologist and an ecologist, have put this study together, a multiyear study. And if if people are interested, I I think it's not behind a paywall. If it is, I guess just let us know.

Chris Enroth: 04:42

I suppose we can get access to it to you. But the name of it is, removing autumn leaves and residential yards reduces the spring emergence of overwintering insects. And so this question of should we remove the leaves or should we leave them be, oftentimes, it is looking at its impact on wildlife, mainly insect overwintering populations, you know, insects interrupting their life cycles, insect population decline. And so that's really a big debate of leave the leaves or not. So and so, yeah, this article or this study seems to address that.

Chris Enroth: 05:23

It looks like they began in about 2020 in terms of some of their initial baseline research in some of the measurements of, like, soil moisture, and soil temperatures, identifying plot sites. And then in, like, 2021 up until '23, they did, like, two years worth of data collection in their plots. And then, Ken, I guess, is there a a good summary, do you think, of this this research and how they went about it?

Ken Johnson: 05:51

Yeah. So they, I guess, they solicited, I guess, looking for look for people that have would be willing for them to do the study in their yards, and they looked at leaf removal, no leaf removal, and then high maintenance areas, more turf grass where you're I I don't say constantly, but you're mowing, and you're you're actually doing stuff, to the landscape. And then low input, like, under trees where you're not you may not have a whole lot of grass growing. You're not doing a whole lot of maintenance work there. And guess, important to note that all of these none of these yards were using pesticides.

Ken Johnson: 06:25

They're they're quote unquote organic. So they're trying to kind of eliminate that variable, pesticide use and stuff in there. So these are all trying to isolate the effect of leaves. So you eliminate pesticide use from there. So that's kind of what they're looking at, and they were what they found was just look at the highlights here.

Ken Johnson: 06:49

Spring emergence of arthropods was down by 17 reduced 17%. So they were looking at butterflies and moths, flies, beetles, parasitic wasps, and spiders were the kind of the groups they're focusing on. So now you have fewer species richness, or like the number of species was reduced, Lepidoptera, butterflies, and moths was reduced by 40 to 45 40% in abundance, or the the total number was reduced by 45%. The kind of the composition or the groups that you found were altered by removing leaves or leaving leaves there. Let's see here.

Ken Johnson: 07:30

Leaf mining moths and the wasp parasitic wasps that are associated with them. So the the wasp that are attacking those leaf mining moths, those are which shouldn't be shocking. Those numbers are reduced because you're removing those leaves that they're overwintering in. Those were greatly reduced. So but regardless of whether it was high maintenance or low maintenance areas, leaving leaves supported those arthropod populations.

Ken Johnson: 07:59

I think spiders saw a pretty big decline as well in areas where leaves are removed. So kind of across the board, you saw reductions in in in the numbers when leaves removed from the landscape.

Chris Enroth: 08:13

And in in terms of how they collected their insect population, their their samples, It looks like they were doing, like, a ninety day collection in the spring, early summertime period. So everywhere from, it looked like, May, collection period. And they said that, you know, the spring, they were able to collect quite a few insects, but not enough to really warrant them visiting their sample areas that often. They would visit them every twenty days. But then as they, as the weather warmed up and we got into May, they started visiting every ten days because insect emergence increased, as the weather warmed up.

Chris Enroth: 08:58

And so, it looks like they collected really on that that shoulders part of spring and summer. Because, like, you know, insects, they can they can their life cycles overlap, and, you know, you'll have some emerging midsummer, late summer, fall. You know, there there's there's multiple emergence time periods, but that is sort of that collection period that they utilize there.

Ken Johnson: 09:22

Yeah. When they collect 34,000 insects? Mhmm. So some some poor grad student probably had to go through all that and ID that stuff.

Chris Enroth: 09:33

That's why grad students that's why they get paid the big bucks. By big bucks, I mean, not hardly anything, if anything at all. So a lot of times, they're still paying to go to school there. So, yes, poor grad student. So I guess the way these plots look like, there was, like, two meters across kinda wide and one meter in that sort of across.

Chris Enroth: 09:59

And then that those two meters were then divided into one plot uncovered, one plot covered with leaves. They they took all the leaves off. They measured and weighed them, and they sifted them all randomly again and put them on one of those one meter plots, one by one meter plots. And, yeah, and they they set these nets out, and then they collected insects again in in the spring spring months. So and it was probably all grad student work.

Chris Enroth: 10:33

I I guess as we read through this, Ken, I don't know if you had any nitpicks. I will give at least my first one that I looked at. I think this is a good study. I'll say that right off the bat that I think that definitely a foundation worth building upon. I did read that you you mentioned the organic practices, and they called it organic or sorry.

Chris Enroth: 10:58

They called it nonchemical fertilizers. I don't know what that is. I've never heard of a fertilizer that's not a chemical because they all are. And so yeah, that that was an interesting one. I think I understand what they mean, that they're they're referring to a synthetic fertilizer perhaps or maybe something that is not high in, like, salts, which might impact, like, soil biology.

Chris Enroth: 11:26

But but that was just right kinda off the bat. I was kinda like, oh, a nonchemical fertilizer. I've never heard of those before. Well, I have now.

Ken Johnson: 11:39

Yeah. I think there are what was it? The first year they had 20 sites, but they didn't so with a site, I think the the the original plan was you had a site. You have both your high and low maintenance areas. No leaves.

Ken Johnson: 11:53

So you have four different trials, more or less, that you're you're doing there. So they had 20 locations. Not all of them wanted to have all of those there. So they may have only done a high maintenance or a low maintenance, not both. And in the second year, they only had 10 sites total.

Ken Johnson: 12:10

So some people dropped out. Yeah. So I think I I think, you know, like I said, think it's a good foundation, but you'd you'd probably be good to go back and have a bigger so, yeah, I don't think you'd find anything different. Mhmm. But

Chris Enroth: 12:24

yeah, I think the gist of the the study is still, like, if you remove the leaves and manage your your lawn and as a, like, a high management, highly manicured style, you're gonna have fewer insects. You know, that this just sort of proves that point. But it is a very small sample size and inconsistent over the two years. So, yeah, we just need replication. We need to take this research and do it again.

Chris Enroth: 12:52

And do it again, do it again, build consensus. That's how science works. Just build that that body of data and knowledge.

Ken Johnson: 13:01

K. I'll do my backyard. Do your

Chris Enroth: 13:03

Alright. We'll do my backyard. Keep adding to the information, the data here. Yes. They're all self funded.

Chris Enroth: 13:15

But, yeah, the I think at the end, though, they do give some recommendations for people. And they I think the the one was sort of, like, at the very least and and and this is a a recommendation that we we see a lot. The very least, in landscapes where you have large shade trees, allow the leaves to fall and and leave them in those spots. There is a landscape kind of design sort of style, and I've saw this popularized by Heather Holm. She's a popular author, insect expert, and it's called soft landings.

Chris Enroth: 13:52

So, essentially, you know, insects, they feed a lot in the canopy of our trees, and then they will often drop to the soil to spend whatever next part of their life cycle in that in the ground. And when we continually disturb that that leaf, that duff layer, or or just mowed grass, we are breaking that life cycle process potentially. So, soft landings, I think that's a pretty neat concept. It it it allows us maybe gives us permission to create these really large planting beds under our trees, which not only is it good for the insects, it can be good for the trees as well. Turfgrass is a huge competitor for tree roots.

Chris Enroth: 14:35

They they occupy a similar soil volume where turfgrass at least has a more fibrous root system, kinda like a mat that has dibs on the water if the grass is more established than the tree. So, yeah, I I I like that soft in soft landings idea that they that they give at the end of the paper. Ken, any other takeaways from the article?

Ken Johnson: 15:02

Man, I think, yeah, that's that's the biggie. Yeah. Just be lazy. Leave them there. It's not gonna hurt.

Ken Johnson: 15:09

I'd say at the very least, leave them at the base. You know, even better. I get well, I get yeah. Maybe even better if if you actually add some plants into that. You know, make a planting bed there.

Ken Johnson: 15:19

Put some ferns or other shade living or spring ephemerals, all that stuff. Just, yeah, increase the diversity you've got in your landscape.

Chris Enroth: 15:27

Mhmm. Yeah. So and we're gonna talk more about that right now. So I I guess, can people can read that study, that article. If if it is a open access research document, we'll leave that link below in the description.

Chris Enroth: 15:46

If not, I'm happy you can email me. I'm happy to send it to you. So so after reviewing that article, what should we be doing with our leaves, Ken? There there is things that my neighbors do, like blow them out into the road. Is that a good idea?

Ken Johnson: 16:05

No. That's that's probably not a good idea. It's get slippery, you know, if you're riding a motorcycle or something or Mhmm. Clogging up your storm drains. That's that's probably one you don't wanna do.

Ken Johnson: 16:17

But, yeah, so, you know, ideally perfect world, we'd leave them. But, you know, obviously, people have different goals for their landscapes. You if you've got a lot of turf, you know, you can tolerate some leaves on the turf. But if you got too many and you wanna have that turf grass, you're gonna have to remove them. So, you know, it was a we were talking before, and it was 20% of your lawn.

Ken Johnson: 16:40

If that's covered, you're fine. The grass will be okay. You can leave them. You start getting thicker than that. The leaves will start matting, start smelling your grass and stuff.

Ken Johnson: 16:49

So there I I would say there are situations where, yeah, we as nice as it would be to leave all the leaves where they fall, there are certain situations where we probably wanna look at removing them just depending on how we're utilizing the landscape. So, you know, I think what a lot of people do is they'll rake them up and haul them off. Or I know here in Jacksonville, the city of Jacksonville, we'll have dates. They'll come through. And if you've got your leaves bag, they'll pick them up for free and haul them off somewhere.

Ken Johnson: 17:18

I'm not sure where that somewhere is and what they do with them, but that that's, you know, a real popular way to use leaves. You know, probably, you know, the ones we're talking about probably my least favorite. Mhmm. Because you're not getting any benefit from that. You're just breaking them up.

Ken Johnson: 17:40

You're you're getting rid of them. I guess blowing in the road would probably be your least favorite than raking up. Another popular one is burning. You know, when I was a kid, we had in our yard, we had probably six, seven oak trees, 100 plus years old. So we had a lot of leaves.

Ken Johnson: 17:58

It would be, like, three weekends of raking leaves, and then, like, another month of burning leaves to get rid of them. But we lived out in the in the country, so to speak, so we could do that. I know here in Jacksonville, you are not allowed to burn leaves within say within city limits. But those noise happen. Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 18:16

You can smell them burning all the time, but, technically, you can't hear in Jackson. I think a lot of municipalities, you're not allowed they don't allow you to burn leaves within city limits. So, again, depending on where you're at, that may or may not be, feasible. Again, you're not I mean, other than other than the enjoyment of building a fire, you're not getting a whole lot of benefit, from burning those leaves either, though. So

Chris Enroth: 18:39

Well, the the reason, like, leaf the smoke coming from burning leaves is just dark and nasty. It's just it's really harsh smoke, and it it's just a lot of that carbon, that valuable carbon that we could put back into our soils. Instead, you're burning it and sending it up into the sky, breathing it in. So, yeah, I I I don't like it when folks are burning leaves around me. It smells bad.

Ken Johnson: 19:10

Especially when you have all your windows open.

Chris Enroth: 19:12

I know. It's fall. We should be have we should our windows should be flung open and enjoying the the beautiful crisp fall air before it gets so cold again, we have to close our windows, turn on the heat. Yes. Yep.

Chris Enroth: 19:28

Well, I I remember when I was growing up, we had a lot of trees, a lot of oak, hickory. We had woods all around us. And so there was this one year my dad came home with this massive trailer, not massive, but probably the size of, like, a riding lawnmower, and it was a giant vacuum. It was a huge leaf vacuum that you hook up to the your mower deck, and it just sucks the leaves up, fills up this big bin that is on there, and you you shred up these leaves. And we use the heck out of those shredded leaves.

Chris Enroth: 20:12

We would use them as mulch in our our garden beds or vegetable garden beds, use them in our landscape beds. It it was a really useful thing because what was happening before that is that my sisters and me would go out and hand rake like like acres, acres and acres. And so we would just rake and rake and and rake. And it it I I still have blisters to this day. Pretty sure I was, like, five years old when I started that.

Chris Enroth: 20:43

But but anyway, Ken, I I know that is one thing that I did when I was when we were young. We would take the leaves, shred them up, utilize them as as a mulch. And so that that was a really popular thing. I still do that to this day with some leaves. Not all leaves.

Chris Enroth: 21:02

I guess maybe we'll talk about our own personal strategies in our yards here in a bit, but, I do I do that for some spots.

Ken Johnson: 21:11

Yeah. And and, you know, if you don't have a a big lawn vacuum or, even a chipper shredder, you know, if you get a garbage can and a and a weed wacker, put the leaves in there, put your weed wacker in there, make sure you wear goggles and stuff because you're gonna get stuff flying everywhere. That's, you know, that's one way. You're not doing large volumes that way, but that that is one way you could potentially shred them, run over them with your lawnmower. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 21:36

Don't break them up. Make sure you don't have any, like, weed seed seed heads in there. You have a dog, make sure you pick up first because you don't wanna be taken through that and put that in your garden stuff. You'll Nope. You only make that mistake once.

Chris Enroth: 21:51

Yeah. You're like, boy, this these leaves are really like a ball of mud. That's not mud. Yeah. I shredding them into your lawn is definitely one that you can that that is recommended.

Chris Enroth: 22:04

It's one I recommend to a lot of people if you do have to do something with the excess leaves that you have on on your turf grass. I think it was Michigan State University has shown that shredded leaves in the in on a lawn is beneficial. It does help improve soil health. It does help improve your your lawn's health as well. So there's there are benefits to that.

Ken Johnson: 22:28

Yeah. And if and if you're gonna be shredding leaves, ideally, do it when they're dry. Mhmm. So, I mean, this year, it doesn't look like that's gonna be much of an issue, but there are avenues when, you know, where you're getting raised. Seems like every weekend is raining when you're doing your your lawn work.

Ken Johnson: 22:42

And when you're trying to shred leaves when they're wet, things just clump, and it becomes Yeah. A mess. It's not very easy to shred them when they're wet. So

Chris Enroth: 22:53

Yeah. I I remember when I had a a very small yard. I mean, it was, like, the size of three parking spaces. But we had trees in our backyard. We had, like, two maple trees, and I still had to deal with with a lot of leaves that would just blow into the yard.

Chris Enroth: 23:09

So I had just a leaf blower, but you could set it so that it would suck up the leaves and shred them up. I learned that if you have a plastic impeller, which is the spinning fan thing that does the sucking, it, the plastic one, you might get a rock up in there. And if it's a big enough rock, it can bust your plastic impeller. So that's when I switched over to leaf blower that had a metal impeller. So then it wouldn't shatter into a thousand pieces.

Chris Enroth: 23:39

I accidentally sucked up a a rock in there when I was shredding leaves.

Ken Johnson: 23:44

Bet you that was exciting.

Chris Enroth: 23:47

That it yes. It made a really funny noise, and then I thought I I was about to explode.

Ken Johnson: 23:58

So I guess I guess another option would be if you wanna take a little more low maintenance, if you don't wanna do the shredding, is just rake them Mhmm. Into area other other areas of landscape, don't rake them and bag them and get rid of them. But landscape beds, a corner that you never use, make a big leaf pile there. You can jump in it year round then. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 24:19

Maybe a little wet and slimy over time, but And I guess if you're raking them and you're not shredding them, be a little bit careful about how thick you're doing it, because if they're fully Especially some of the bigger leaves, they'll start matting, and that can cause just water to to shut off. So, if if you are gonna do that, you can put some on there, but don't bake, you know, two foot deep because it's it'll it'll mat down much lower, but that could cause some problems for you. So just just be smart about that if you're just raking up.

Chris Enroth: 24:53

Yeah. Creates creates more of a barrier than than a mulch if you get a little too thick and and just sort of mats down like that. Your decomposition might become a little bit more anaerobic than aerobic, so it might be more smelly and slower to decompose. So, yeah, just never hurts sometimes. Just go you go in there with a a pitchfork or something, maybe loosen that that leaf layer up.

Chris Enroth: 25:19

I recommend that too with wood mulch as well. Like, if you have especially if you're using shredded mulch, you gotta break that layer up because it just it creates a shell over time.

Ken Johnson: 25:29

I'll say another one I've I've heard for for leaves, people who have roses. If you've some that are kinda borderline hardy for where you're at, is using those leaves to insulate plants. And you can you can do those with other plants too. Think roses is the most common one where you build some kind of cage, and you'd fill that ideal again, ideally shredded leaves with that. Make sure it's you know, we're down and freezing before we do that.

Ken Johnson: 25:54

Probably you wanna use dry leaves, obviously. They're gonna potentially get wet. But Mhmm. Just help that insulate that crown of that plant, you know, with with mums if you're planting them this time of year. And one of the reasons to tell you, leave that's that top growth on there so it'll catch leaves and help insulate.

Ken Johnson: 26:10

So leaves can be used as much or kinda protecting the crown of plants too for that kind of marginal hardy plants in our landscapes. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 26:22

And and I would say you could shred them up and you could compost them like like an active composter, put them in a compost pile. A lot of people who do produce their own compost really love it when it is fall and the leaves are are available because they do have a a a very good carbon to nitrogen ratio for breaking down, especially if you're gonna be mixing other greens in there. You could mix in grass clippings, other vegetable matter, maybe kitchen scraps from some of the produce that you might be cooking with. So so they do make a really good mixture for compost, especially if you shred them up, they will break down even faster. And so you could compost them more actively.

Chris Enroth: 27:09

I do it a little bit more naturally. All as you heard, I shred them up. I throw them on the on the garden beds, and I just sort of let them decompose in place. So I'm just making compost in situ. I think I use that word correctly that I read all the time, the fancy people use.

Chris Enroth: 27:25

But, yes, I think I used it just right.

Ken Johnson: 27:30

Yeah. And and, you know, even when you put them on the garden, you know, you can use them as mulcher. You can incorporate them into the soil. And if you're gonna be doing that, do that in the fall, so you do have time for that to break down so you're not tying up all your nitrogen in the spring when you wanna plant. But if you wanna get a little more rapid, break down any, I guess, organic matter incorporation into your soils, shred them and and till them in.

Ken Johnson: 27:56

Yeah. I mean, I'm not necessarily a big fan of tilling every year either, but every

Chris Enroth: 28:01

once in

Ken Johnson: 28:01

a while to get that to get that stuff in would be okay, I think.

Chris Enroth: 28:05

Yeah. And and if you don't care, folks, we don't care. You could just leave them be. It you know, if there's no HOA breathing down your neck saying you have to do this and you don't care what your lawn looks like if you kill off large portions because you just leave the leaves on there, that's also an option. So, yeah, just as long as you're not breaking the rules, I suppose, where you live and which would just make it harder for you, not not for Ken or me.

Chris Enroth: 28:32

But, yeah, just you you can just leave them there, leave them be. So that that isn't another off that's another option.

Ken Johnson: 28:42

Yes. So and and we do that in a lot of areas, in our we do have a few places where we do need to rake, just because it would get too thick to kill the weeds that we call our grass, our turf. But, yeah, we usually just leave stuff in, and we'll go around. You know, a lot of people around us bag their leaves. We'll go around and collect them, bring them home, and we'll mulch them.

Ken Johnson: 29:06

And I've got my strategic leaf reserve in the backyard. It's got piles of bags of leaves and stuff that I can access throughout the year.

Chris Enroth: 29:16

That's awesome. I I need someone on board in my household to let me do that. So maybe maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll maybe I'll go down the road here, some of my neighbors, and say, hey. You wanna go leaf hunting with me?

Chris Enroth: 29:30

We'll we'll we'll bag us some leaves. So that so that is your strategy, Ken. You you do have to do a little bit of cleanup, but you're also gathering other people's leaves to put in your yard. I like it.

Ken Johnson: 29:44

Yeah. Yeah. We put the seats down in the van. My wife usually we'll both go out initially, then I'll I'll start shredding as she's collecting. It's really awesome when the people, like, shred them first because then I don't have to do anything.

Ken Johnson: 29:57

And we've got probably, what do we have, four or five garbage plastic garbage cans that the previous owners left behind. We just fill those with shredded leaves, have the kids step in them, smash it down. So we can we'll use some in the fall. We'll pull some out in the spring. We wanna mulch stuff and yep.

Chris Enroth: 30:19

I love it. They they are a resource. They are a great resource. Not only can overwintering insects use them as part of their life cycle, we can use them also. So, yeah, take those leave bags of leaves, Ken.

Chris Enroth: 30:31

I love that. They were gonna get hauled off somewhere anyway. We we don't know what Jacksonville does with their leaves. So all we know, they burn them. Maybe

Ken Johnson: 30:39

they don't do that. I don't know. I should I should probably know that. I've lived here long enough.

Chris Enroth: 30:43

Yeah. I shouldn't make accusations like that. I I I guess for the leaf strategy that we have in our yard because you know, I think I've mentioned this before. We have the ranch style house on the east side of the neighborhood, which I like to call the leaf catcher house in the fall because the prevailing wind comes from the west, blows everybody's leaves up against our house. And so I do have to do a lot of leaf management.

Chris Enroth: 31:13

I have to do a lot of leaf collection and moving around just to prevent leaves from piling against the house, which could offer as a vector to other things that I don't want in the house like rodents. And so the other thing, though, is is I will take leaves up. I I will shred them when I get a lot of them and use them as mulch in certain garden beds that I have. I have kinda like a woodland garden bed that will get shredded leaves, but also just I'll just rake leaves onto it, just get them off of the turf grass and get them into the garden bed. And then, of course, I have just areas of the yard.

Chris Enroth: 31:50

I just leave them be. And I noticed, Ken, that over the course of the winter, it doesn't matter on the lawn. The leaves just seem to blow off anyway against the house or against into any landscape beds or or anything that has standing vegetation. And and to me, the wind is just like the water. They both flow, and whenever there's friction, like, in this case, vegetation, it slows down the water or it slows down the wind and it drops whatever sediment it might be carrying in the case of water or leaves in the case of the wind.

Chris Enroth: 32:27

And so I found that even if I decide to leave the leaves on my lawn, they still just blow off anyway over the course of the winter, and they all wind up getting deposited either against the house or within the planting beds. So I just leave all my vegetation standing in my landscape beds, and they catch the leaves. And and then I prob I I have to deal with them in the spring, though, because they're so deep. At that point, I have to I have to reduce that amount so I don't kill all my perennials as well. But, yeah, that that's what I've discovered that, yeah, even though I just leave them on the lawn lawn, they still blow off.

Ken Johnson: 33:05

Yeah. I I think a lot of our in a lot of our yards, especially our front yard, yeah, things just kinda blow blow away. In the backyard, don't have quite as much wind, and and we don't really do a good job of like, we don't get the leaves spotless. It's just Yeah. This is really thick.

Ken Johnson: 33:23

We're gonna clean it up, and wherever it ends up, it ends up. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 33:28

Yep. Well, Ken, I guess we've we've shown that there is no end all, be all of what to do with leaves. People, you can make your own choices and decisions on what to do. We've we've talked about all the options that we can come up with. I'm sure there are others that others will use.

Ken Johnson: 33:45

Yeah. I guess, I mean, you can even go with the I'm assuming they still have these. We had them as a kid. You get, like, the big pumpkin bags filled with leaves. So Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 33:54

For your for your Halloween decorations. Mhmm. I wonder if they make turkeys or snowmen or anything like that.

Chris Enroth: 34:01

Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 34:01

Just just keep filling them throughout the year.

Chris Enroth: 34:04

Yeah. You you need you need to have fun with fall leaves too. I mean, that is, like, the quintessential childhood activity. At least it is here in in Illinois that we when the the ash trees started dropping just a few leaves, my youngest kid got out the rake and he made a tiny little pile and he said, can we jump in this now? I'm like, go for it.

Chris Enroth: 34:26

It's gonna hurt, but you could jump in that tiny leaf pile that you created. So he I I will say he is excited for big leaf piles to to jump in and do, like, flips and backs, somersaults in.

Ken Johnson: 34:40

Yeah. I I think that is a requirement. If you're raking your leaves, you gotta make at least one pile to jump in.

Chris Enroth: 34:45

Yes. Have fun. Have fun with them. There's spiders in there. There's all kinds of other critters, and that's fine.

Chris Enroth: 34:51

They're not gonna hurt you. At one time, came face to face with a hognose snake. I thought that leaf pile was a little bit heavier as I was moving it. It's like, oh, yeah. It's because there's a big old snake in there.

Chris Enroth: 35:03

That should discourage you from doing it it doing and having fun with it, though. Cut that part out, Ken. People are scared of snakes, so like me.

Ken Johnson: 35:14

Well, speaking of snakes, going back to that the article we were talking about, you know, the insects, you know, that has a carry on effect. You know, if you you have more of those insects, then you have more of the, you know, going up the food chain, you know, birds that are eating the insects, the bats, and stuff. So it's not only the insects that are benefiting, it's those higher higher level organisms that are. And a lot of those are gonna be overwintering, like your snakes, your toads, salamanders, other vertebrates and stuff are gonna be overwintering in those leaves too. It's not just insects.

Ken Johnson: 35:46

You're potentially benefiting by leaving stuff if you decide to go that route. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 35:53

Yeah. Well, I I do encourage folks, read that article. I think there's a lot of that that's also stayed in that article that we have not touched on today. So, yeah, read it, and let us know what you think. Tell us your personal leaf management strategy at your house.

Ken Johnson: 36:10

Yes. And if you live in Jackson, they'll buy me. Thank you for bagging your leaves so I can get them.

Chris Enroth: 36:18

Well, that was a lot of great information about fall leaves, how they benefit our wildlife, our insects, and then what we can do with the excess fall leaves that maybe we have to get rid of or need to so that it doesn't smother our turf grass and we don't have to spend our time and money trying to rehab rehabilitate our lawn next year. Well, Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. And a special thank you to Ken. Thank you so much for hanging out today talking about our own leaf strategies that we have in our backyards.

Ken Johnson: 36:55

Yes. Thank you. Hopefully, we'll start dropping a little quicker here so we can go make a pile and jump on it with the kids.

Chris Enroth: 37:03

That sounds like fun. And still be able to stand up afterwards and and not like be in pain.

Ken Johnson: 37:08

Yeah. And that that is the key there. And let's do this again next

Chris Enroth: 37:15

week. Oh, we shall do this again next week. It will be a garden bite for you, and then it's getting into spooky season. I'm looking forward to the shows we got coming up. Oh, it'll be it'll be fun.

Chris Enroth: 37:29

That's all I'm gonna say about that. No no teasing, but it it it will be a good one. So I'm looking forward to it. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening, or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.