This is USU Extension Horticulturist Taun Beddes based in Utah and Juab counties. Fall is finally here, and with the cooler temperatures comes yard cleanup. A major portion of this is cleaning up leaves from our lawns, but you should reconsider if you need to actually clean them up. If you just have leaves here and there, just leave them be and they will be fine. If you have about 50% leaf coverage on your lawn, then just mow them up and again, just leave them in place. When the lawn is almost entirely covered, the leaves need to be removed. If you leave them in place and they get covered by snow, the leaves will smother your lawn and greatly damage it.
Leaves are not just a seasonal nuisance, they're a free resource for your garden. I like to collect them with my lawnmower. I then use them as a mulch in my garden and flower beds, and I place them about two to three inches deep. This saves me money on store bought mulch and helps the environment by recycling a natural material. When leaves fall in other parts of the yard, it can be beneficial to leave them. Many beneficial insects and spiders over winter in the fallen leaves, adding an ecological benefit.
One thing I've noticed is that many people don't want the leaves that they have raked up and oftentimes just send them to the landfill, and this can be a bad thing. Instead of throwing them away, once you have them bagged, advertise that you have free leaves on social media. Many of your neighbors will want to use them in their own yards.
Fall is also the time to cut down perennials, but wait until the leaves and stems of those perennials have turned brown, which is usually after a hard frost, and then cut them to within a few inches of the ground. The dried stalks can be chopped with a mower and mixed with the leaves in your garden or sent to green waste. Once your annuals have died back for the season, it's fine to just pull them out of the ground. They can be used in the same way as your spent perennials, but if either of these were diseased, just send them to the landfill so that they don't contaminate other plants.
