My yard and my neighbors' have plenty of trees. Is it safe/advisable to use the fallen leaves as mulch to cover the ground over the winter. I will be planting a variety of bulbs and roses this fall.

Thank you.

Leaves from trees are an excellent mulch, soil amendment, compost material, good for anything except bagging up and throwing away. Leaves are a very valuable resource, much better for your soil that the peat moss sold in the garden centers and they are loaded with nutrients that will feed your soil.
Those trees have been growing all summer, taking nutrients from your soil and the leaves have been making more nutrients all summer that will still be in those leaves when the lose the chlorophyl that makes them green. Use those leaves as a mulch, year around not just in the winter. Leave them on the planting beds so the soil bacteria and earthworms eventually work them into your soil.
What to do with your leaves this fall?

1) Mulch mow back into the turf.

2) Pick them up with a bagging mower and use them for mulch on your planting beds.

3) Pick them up with a bagging mower and Compost them.

4) Do not rake those leaves up (that action damages the grass crowns so the don't grow as well), bag them up, and throw them away.

5) Do not burn those leaves because they are simply too valuable a resource to do that to and burning leaves introduce more pollutants into the air than does a coal fired electric power plant in one year.


Message was edited by: KimmSr

This will be the first year that I'll be using leaves for mulch, having learned here that they are the best things to use. While I don't at all want to wish away the summer, I find I'm somewhat impatiently watching the leaves slowly turn and start to fall, anxious for my new healthy mulch.
I've already told my neighbor across the street (who collects leaves too) to don't dare touch my leaves!!
Welcome to this wonderful forum, Jacknut!
:x Judy