Why & How You Should Mulch Your Leaves With A Lawnmower Instead Of Raking Them This Fall Season
Why & How You Should Mulch Your Leaves With A Lawnmower Instead Of Raking Them This Fall Season
There is something very magical about the fall season. It is the time of year when the most leaves are shed. So, fall is the perfect time for you to spruce up your lawn and garden. If you are looking for home improvement ideas for fall, mulching leaves on your lawn is a good way to start.
If you are new to the idea of mulching leaves with a lawnmower as a means of home improvement, you probably have a lot of questions. You might be wondering how to mulch your leaves with a lawnmower and why you should mulch them in the first place. To help you navigate through it, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about mulching in this article!
Why You Should Mulch Your Leaves
Mulching leaves on your lawn during autumn has multiple benefits. People traditionally use the method of raking leaves on the lawn and garden for home improvement. But mulching brings more far benefits and efficiency in cleaning up your lawn during the fall season than raking does. In fact, according to the National Wildlife Federation, raking leaves is actually an optional exercise. Mulching leaves, on the other hand, can provide numerous environmental (and aesthetic!) benefits to your lawn and garden.
One of the major reasons why you should mulch your leaves in the fall is to improve the health of your lawn. As it turns out, mulching leaves with a lawnmower can have a positive impact on your soil’s health. Various studies have shown that mulching decreases evaporation from the soil. So, moisture retention in the soil increases as a consequence, which greatly benefits the health of your lawn.
Additionally, mulching helps to regulate the soil temperature. It enhances nutrient availability in the soil. This creates better root absorption by trees and plants in your garden. Mulching is also responsible for preventing the growth of weeds and dandelions on your lawn. And, it’s an excellent option for encouraging biological activity in your lawn and garden.
Mulching also controls pests and related diseases in your garden. This process helps to decrease the salinity of your soil. These are crucial factors to improve the health of your soil to boost your home improvement activities during the fall season. Also, mulching the leaves in your garden after they fall will support biodiversity and environmental welfare.
Mulching is a great option to benefit the local wildlife and its biodiversity. It ensures that the butterflies and moths that lay eggs in the leaf litter can have their natural habitat. So, the species of butterflies, moths, and insects that overwinter as eggs or pupae can keep a healthy habitat in that place. In this way, you can also support the microorganisms living in the soil.
Hence, mulching leaves has many advantages for you and your home. It is an excellent option to improve and support the health of your lawn and garden. But most importantly, mulching leaves will save you time and effort in comparison to raking them, which most everyone agrees is a time-consuming hassle. You will also save money – because we all know time is money -- and you’ll even eliminate some of the microplastic waste that accumulates on your lawn from manmade chemicals that the wind blows around our environment through this process.
How To Mulch With A Lawnmower In The Fall Season
To mulch your leaves with a lawnmower, first you will need to select what kind of lawnmower is most suitable for you. Typically, a conventional lawnmower is ideal for mulching your leaves. However, if you have a big lawn or lots of trees, and a huge number of leaves to mulch, you might need to invest in a special mulching mower or mulching blade.
Next, set the blade or mower height to the highest setting to mulch your leaves. You will also need to remove the bag that collects clippings from the mower. Depending on the type of leaves that you are mowing, you may need to prepare your lawn. If you are dealing with especially thick leaves, make sure to spread them across the lawn.
According to specialists, it is safe to mulch up to 6 inches of leaves in one go. After most of the fall has passed and the number of fallen leaves gradually decreases, you can then start mowing your lawn regularly. That said, the goal is to shred the leaves to approximately half an inch in diameter. It should look more or less like a dime. You can shred them in one pass if the leaves are thin. But you may need multiple passes for bigger and thicker leaves.
The number of passes that you will need will depend on the type and volume of leaves. So, after shredding them to the size of a dime, leave them in their place. The shreds should rest between grass blades in a way that they cover up your lawn, but won’t be noticeably visible between the grass blades. During the height of the fall season, you may need to mulch every week if you want to maintain that super-clean look.
For one week, let the chopped leaves remain in one place. Then, in the next week, using a bag collector, run over the leaves to collect them. If you want, you can empty the small remains around a winter-tender plants. By leaving the mulched leaves, you can fertilize your plants and soil in the garden. It will also aid in the preservation of biodiversity and sustainability in your lawn.
Make sure that the mulch is not too close to the base of your plants. That will result in suffocating the plants. They might even starve to death in the water because of this. It’s best practice to leave two to three inches of space around the base of each plant. This will create a shape similar to a donut. Through this easy process, you can finish mulching your garden effectively.
Leaving the leaf shreds on your lawn will allow the soil to collect valuable microbes and nutrients. This isn’t possible to accomplish through standard leaf-raking. You can support a nitrogen boost in your garden by mulching leaves through the process we’ve outlined here; and as a result, you will probably not need to fertilize your garden if you mulch your fallen leaves instead of raking them.
Conclusion
Mulching leaves with a lawnmower can be a great initiative to support your home improvement efforts. Start mulching your leaves this fall season to take advantage of its many benefits. With this mulching process using a lawnmower, you can easily conduct the process by yourself and won’t need to hire a professional lawncare company. Happy mowing!
