Wake up and smell the leaf mulch

Last fall I changed a longstanding fall garden clean-up routine: I didn’t rake fallen leaves from the garden beds and chop them up in the leaf shredder. I didn’t mulch those same beds with the chopped leaves. I didn’t cut the dead perennials’ foliage and flower stalks to the ground. I just let the tree leaves lie on top of the plants and left the dead stalks standing.

Meadow rue (Thalictrum aquilegiifolium) emerging through the leaf litter

    My reason for this change of approach was that I’d learned that native insects shelter and lay eggs under fallen leaves, in crowns of dormant perennials, and in those dead flower stalks. If I left those insects alone through the winter, they’d have a better chance of surviving, reproducing, and contributing to the garden ecosystem in spring. It was hard to hold myself back from cleaning up at the end of the garden season. I have to admit it was also a lot less work.

Beneficial lacewing finding winter cover

    Through the winter, I watched those ragged stalks and those whole leaves, especially on the new perennial bed that’s right next to the back deck. The leaves are mostly red oak, with some Norway maple mixed in. The garden’s usual winter look, bare but neatly tended, had morphed into either a sloppy mess or a more natural scene, depending how I felt on a given day. 

The backyard scene in March

Now is the time to assess how this lazy approach to preparing for winter worked out.

    I waited impatiently for daytime temperatures to stay in the fifties, indicating that the time had come for lifting the leaves off the new plants and moving them to the compost pile. I was anxious to know how the plants were doing under there. For the past two weeks I’ve been gradually uncovering the deck bed. 

Perennials and a dwarf juniper under the leaves

Dry leaves formed the top layer, but beneath these I uncovered wet, matted leaves plastered to the ground. I chose overcast days with rain in the forecast, not hard to find recently, for exposing the covered plants to the light. Their new foliage was pale from growing in the dark. I didn’t want them to get sunburned from sudden exposure to full sun.

    With the whole bed uncovered, I see that most of the new perennials made it through the winter. Of course, they benefited from other factors besides the leaf cover. Snow covered the bed during much of the winter, protecting the new plants from desiccation and temperature extremes, and there’s been plenty of rain this spring.

    To mulch the uncovered bed, I shredded leaves that I’d stored in the garage in paper yard waste bags. 

Shredding makes mulch that doesn't mat or blow around like the whole leaves

If insects took refuge in the bags last fall, they should have moved out by now. Birds are very active in the yard, which seems like an indication that they’re finding insects to eat. 

A cardinal couple is building a nest

     I’m hoping that more native insects will enrich the garden’s food web this year. Not only animals will benefit. I’m aiming for plant-friendly balanced populations of pollinators, leaf-eaters, and the beneficial insect predators that will keep leaf-eaters under control.

Leaf litter and native insects make congenial conditions for woodland plants