Dealing With Autumn Leaves in Your Lawn

I know they look pretty and give you that autumny feel but you really should not leave leaves lying on your lawn. They could cause you all sorts of problems.

In this post I’ll be giving you some helpful advice to make sure they don’t cause you any hassle now or in the future.

What should we remove them?

There are actually various as to why you shouldn’t leave leaves sitting around your garden. To make for easy reading, I’ve put them all in a list (or at least all the ones I’m aware of) down below.

• Because leaves can form a barrier which blocks access of air, water and nutrients to the grassroots, they can smother the grass which can lead to death in just a few weeks.
• Leaves reduce grass vidour allowing moss to take over
• Leaves promote lawn diseases like snow mould and brown patch
• Leaves attract and make life easier for worms – which then in turn can attract moles
• If they are matted down well, leaves can prevent new grass blades emerging the following spring.

To make sure you aren’t at the mercy of any of these, I would clear your lawn at least once a week.

How picky do you need to be?

Not as much as you’d think.

When you’re just focusing on the health of your lawn, you don’t need to be overly enthusiastic about gathering up all the leaves. If there’s only a few lying out there then you’ll be totally fine just leaving them.

It’s only when you’re motivated by aesthetics that you’ll need to hunt down the last few stragglers hiding in the corners of your lawn.

What to do with them?

If you do get a good amount of leave fall on your lawn every year then don’t just throw them away, put them to better use. They are free organic matter after all!

The first thing I would consider doing is mulching the leaves. They can be decomposed by any earthworms and microorganisms living within your soil, which can result in better turf health, quality and colour.

They also do good for the greater community as they stay on site and out of landfills.

Going too far

Make sure you don’t overdo the mulch to the point where you’re still smothering the lawn. The grass blades should always be facing upwards and visible even when covered by the leaves.

Also, make sure to spread the leaves around to make for even distribution and feel free to use them in other areas of the garden, like flower beds and the compost pile.

Which mower to use

Of course a mulching mower is the first that comes to mind but I want to reassure you that some robotic mowers will have no problem doing this as well.

Models from the likes of Robomow and Husqvarna are probably your most reliable in this regard. Both have a very effective cutting system (particularly Husqvarna, although Robomow does have the bigger blade) so they should be able to chew up the leaves with ease.

I hope you take into consideration all the tips I mentioned above. If you do get a lot of leaf cover over the autumn then they’ll definitely save you a lot of work and effort in the spring.

Tell what you think in the comment section below and if you have any more tips then please let me know!

Thanks for reading and if you’d like to save yourself the hassle of mulching all those leaves manually, then check out my list of robotic lawn mowers.

As I said, most (mainly Robomow and Husqvarna) will have no problems with the leaves and they’ll save you loads of time in the process!

To find one for you, follow this link 😉