Beneficial Options for Your Leaves
Removal vs Recycling
Tired of bagging and racking leaves? The earth-friendly approach to removing every leaf from a lawn is no longer necessary. Work smart, not hard and chop them up back into the lawn. The conversion of the dead leaf material is extremely beneficial to the soil biology and cycle of life in the turf. Gardeners have been composting, covering & creating healthy garden soil with leaf debris for decades.
There are many tips and tricks to do this properly, but the main objective is to mow them as fine as possible leaving very little on the surface. Double / Triple mowing or simply mowing once, then running a bagger unit the second pass will return some back to the soil while removing excessive amounts that you want to prevent from smothering the grass. It will be much easier to do this when the leaves are dry and not too thick. This may require mowing more often, but it may be less time consuming and definitely beneficial.
Leaves vs Fertilizer Application
Will leaves on my lawn affect my fertilizer application? Every season we battle leaves on the lawn while doing the final application of the season. If the covering of leaves is not too thick, we can apply granular fertilizer. Once the application is complete the areas with dense leaf cover are stirred around with our backpack blowers to help the fertilizer fall off any leaves and onto the ground where it belongs. If our technicians determine the leaves are too thick to make the application, you will be rescheduled with notification. This will allow you the time needed to chop up the dense leaves or remove them from the lawn.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/files/Mulch_fallen_leavesRS.pdf
