Don't bag them, burn them, or blow them into your neighbors yard!  Tree leaves and other landscape waste should be thought of a valuable resource.  Leaves and grass clippings should never leave your landscape. 

Decomposition is a natural process of dead animals and plant tissue.  Consider what happens in the forest.  Leaves that fall from trees in the forest each autumn will rot down and become part of the forest floor.  The thick carpet of leaves turns into a rich compost.  Chemicals that are a product of the decomposition process get dissolved in the soil and become beneficial for living plants.  These nutrients will be absorbed by plants roots and be used to help make new, leaves, flowers, branches or seeds.  Shouldn't we want this process to happen in our own back yards?

Leaves are truly one of natures treasures, so why bag them and place them at the curb to take up space in our landfills?  Try one of these alternatives.

1.  During times of light leaf drop or if there are only a few small trees in your yard the most efficient and easiest way to manage leaves is to mow them, leaving the shredded leaves in place on the lawn.  Using a mulching mower is best but not essential. 

2.  Mulching is a simple way to recycle leaves.  If leaves are at the point of excess, they should still be mulched on the lawn (leaves that have been mowed or run through some other type of shredder will decompose faster and are much more likely to remain in place than unshredded leaves), but raked up and distributed as mulch in flower beds and vegetables gardens.  A 3-6 inch layer around the base of trees and shrubs, 2-3 inch layer in perennial beds and an ice thick layer between the rows of vegetable gardens should work well.  Turf can take quite a volume of leaves before there is excess.

Mulching has other benefits: helps maintain moisture in the soil, helps controls temperatures, inhibits weed growth and helps stop erosion. 

3.  Leaves can be collected and tilled directly in to the soil, a 6 inch layer of leaves works well.  A good strategy is to collect leaves in fall and till them in vegetable gardens and annual planting beds so leaves have time to decompose before spring planting.

4. The remaining leaves that have been ground-up by the lawnmower can be put into the compost pile. If you have a garden, lawn, container gardens or even houseplants, you have a use for compost.