Falling Leaves

     A remarkably warm September has helped keep the leaves on the trees longer than usual. Not until Halloween weekend did our trees start shedding seriously.

     Some of these leaves serve a crucial fall  function. They act as great pillows to jump and fall in and are a lot of fun for some of us 14 and younger -- and even some of us 65 and older.

     Far too many of us rake and bag all our leaves in a feeble effort to keep our lawns clean. Not only does this create unnecessary work, it adds additional tons of refuse to our landfills and starves our yards of  nutrients.

     I use a leaf blower and a mulching lawn mower. I blow the leaves out of the flower beds into the yard where I can chop them up with the mower. I blow some of the inch or less leaf fragments back into the beds and leave the rest on the lawn.

     For the first several days the yard looks a complete mess, but a few days of breezes will encourage the leaves to shimmy down the blades of grass closer to the earth, and the yard will quickly look much better. Meanwhile, I have saved my self all the aggravation of bagging the leaves up. The leaf bits will decompose over the winter and provide spring fertilizer for the new grass. The decomposition will also produce a leaf mold that inhibits grubs.

     A heavily shaded yard in Beverly may require more frequent mulching than  summer mowing. But there is no raking and no bagging and you get free fertilizer, grub control and even fewer Japanese beetles the following year. So what is not to like?

     By the way, for you procrastinators out there, we are having yet another bout of delicious warm weather, and you still have plenty of time to buy and plant spring bulbs.