Autumn in the Garden

It's that time of year again when the garden fills with autumn leaves. Beautiful as they may look, creating a blanket of reds, oranges and browns on the lawn, they don't do the grass any good. So they need to be cleared.

If you have a few fruit trees you may get away with leaving the wind to disperse them, but if you have oaks or horse chestnuts they will reward you with a thick layer of leaves that need to be removed.  Horse chestnut leaves in particular are large and take a long time to rot, so it's essential to rake them up and remove to the compost heap. Oak leaves are plentiful and the garden will definitely benefit from having them removed so the lawn can breathe.

Small gardens can be cleared with a leaf blower, which can make life much easier. But a bigger lawn will involve some manpower. If you have a garden tractor with a trailer, this is the ideal way to gather up the leaves, but if you don't there are a couple of tricks to make leaf removal a bit easier.  A large wheely bin makes a good transporter or we've seen a large plastic tarpaulin used. Simply pile the leaves on then one person can drag a large drag a large number of leaves without having to make too many trips.

This year has been a good one for horse chestnuts and we've found a huge number falling - perhaps that means we're in for a cold winter.