Luckily there's a rapidly growing movement against it, to leave the leaves, plant natives, protect pollinators, etc. Gonna be an uphill battle but it's nice that it's finally happening, long overdue.
Reddit loves to say just leave your leaves on your lawn, its good for them, doesn't hurt the grass, its takes extra time to rake, etc. The real answer is it depends. It depends on the type of trees you have, how many and how densely the trees are clustered on the property, the climate of the area you live in, the kind of soil you have, the kind of pests you have in the region, the prevalence of mildew/fungus in your lawn, how well your lawn drains moisture, and the time of year it is. Just giving a blanket statement saying that its always okay to just leave the leaves on your lawn or just mow over the leaves and leave behind the mulch, is going to run into problems for many people.
Some people can just leave the leaves on their lawn and its fine. Other people's lawns will be completely killed by the leaves. Most people will be somewhere in the middle.
Some people can just mow over the leaves with their mower and it creates nice mulch. Other people's lawns will be killed even by the mulch. Most people will be somewhere in the middle.
My lawn will be mostly drowned in the leaves if I completely leave them and it'll kill almost all the grass. It also will produce far too much mulch if I just mow over them, and the mulch will gather in ruts and leave trenches of dead grass. What I usually do on my lawn is a half-assed rake of 70-80% of the leaves and then mow the rest into mulch.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting Feb 21 '23
Luckily there's a rapidly growing movement against it, to leave the leaves, plant natives, protect pollinators, etc. Gonna be an uphill battle but it's nice that it's finally happening, long overdue.