Falling leaves are a free gift

Here comes the free mulch! And compost, and fertilizer, and insulation ꟷ all swirling down from the trees in the form of colorful leaves.

“The leaves that fall in autumn are a gift,” said Spencer Campbell, Plant Clinic manager at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle. “They can do so much in our gardens.”

Keeping fallen leaves in your yard is more sustainable than packing them up to be trucked away as landscape waste. It saves emissions from the trucks and the huge machines used in commercial composting.

It also saves effort. “You don’t need to rake away every leaf from your yard,” Campbell said. “It’s best to clear most leaves off the lawn, but when they fall on perennial beds or around trees and shrubs, you can just leave them be.” They’ll decay gradually, like they do in nature, and your pla