Every year in mid-autumn, large bags of leaves would turn up stacked in our garage, raked up from beneath the large oak trees in a friend’s garden.
It may seem an odd gift, but my mother’s garden lacked deciduous trees, so she missed out on nature’s valuable annual offering.
When she mentioned it to her friend, who had more leaves than they could manage, the annual gift started to arrive.
The leaves went into a leaf bin to break down into leaf mould and top up the compost, to be used as mulch straight onto the garden.
The autumn leaves that fall from deciduous trees such as oak, elm, maple, liquidambar and birch are not just colourful but filled with nutrients.
In natural woodlands, leaves fall to the forest floor…
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Good Organic Gardening (Digital) - 1 Issue, 15.6