Fall leaves are a present, not a problem!
They supply everything you need to mulch and feed your landscape.
Leaves on lawns
If leaves fall on your lawn, mow them promptly, before they start to smother the grass. (Never leave whole leaves on a lawn!)
If it’s a small amount, just mow them back into the turf, where they’ll provide a gentle feeding and help to break down any thatch.
If you have lots of leaves and your lawn is treated with chemical herbicides, you can collect and pile up the combination of leaves and grass clippings, but you can only use the resulting compost on your lawn. The persistent herbicides in use today will kill other plants, even after composting.
If your lawn is herbicide-free (good for you!), collect and compost the clippings and mowed leaves and use the resulting compost anywhere.
Mulch & compost-making
The leaves that are falling now supply everything you need to mulch and feed your landscape.
The best way to harness the power of those leaves is with an electric leaf blower with a reserve setting. Take off the blower, snap on the vacuum funnel, attach the collection bag and go to town! The machine will suck up and shred the leaves without you having to bend over or do extra work.
Dump the collected, shredded leaves into a big pile or bin and they will become excellent compost by the spring. Mix in spent coffee grounds as you go to add nitrogen to the mix and make that compost faster, hotter and better.
Or just use the shredded leaves to protect raised beds over the winter and to mulch landscape plants. Shredded leaves are a much better mulch than any kind of wood.
But those leave must be shredded. Whole leaves mat down like a tarp and make a stinky mess and/or smother the plants they fall on. That’s how trees reduce competition on the forest floor.
Time to ‘call time’ for houseplants not in the house
Yes, it’s really nice out now, but those of us in the far outskirts have already had a nip of frost — and fortune favors the prepared! (Or is it ‘fortune favors the bold’? I forget …)
Anyway, don’t wait until the last minute to bring in your houseplants and bedding plant begonias; they’ll brighten up your windowsills with blooms all winter if you bring them indoors now. Some of mine are a decade old and still look great!
Prep houseplants by blasting the leaves with sharp streams of water to dislodge aphids and other pests. No soap, no pesticides — sharp streams of water alone do the best job of harassing hitchhikers. Blast your plants now, again a few days later, and then bring them in.
And remember that most houseplants — including orchids — can’t handle direct sun, even in the winter. Keep them under plant lights, in ambient light, or use a sheer curtain to give them lots of light without sunburn.
Cedar apple rust: The bad symbiosis
Raj in Vienna writes: “My six-year-old semi-dwarf apple trees get infected every year by rust that devastates the fruits and leaves. I spray them every week with sulfur and the rust still wins. There are two ornamentally strategic juniper bushes near the trees (20 feet away) that supposedly support the rust over winter. Is there anything else I can try before giving up on them?”
No, Raj. Your “cedar apple rust” problem is an unwanted symbiotic relationship in which the ‘rust’ — so named because the affected leaves look like rusty metal — passes from members of the juniper and cedar family to apple trees. (Cedar and juniper are in the same basic family, but the problem is most common when Eastern red cedars are near apple trees, hence the non-juniper common name of the problem.)
“The book” says that there’s no control other than to remove and replace either the apple trees or juniper bushes.
Apple cedar rust and alternative fruit trees
Raj says he needs the guilty junipers to stay. He writes: “I’m thinking of cutting the apple trees down and planting persimmon and pomegranate instead.”
Persimmons are a native fruit that does well in our area, Raj, but have you tasted them? Not a lot of people like the astringent flavor of the fruits. And we’re just a bit too far north to keep pomegranates happy over the winter.
You can actually stay with apple if you replace your existing trees with varieties resistant to cedar apple rust, like Empire, Macfree, Redfree, Gala, Stayman and Granny Smith.
Or switch to pears; pears are the easiest big fruit to grow.
And no matter what, you need to pull the old apples out, stumps and all, if you want to plant other trees in their place.
