The response to our Ask Ken series has been amazing! I think these answers will be interesting and informative for our customers so a big thank you to everyone who took the time to ask. If you have a question click here. I really enjoy answering them!
Today’s Question: Why do you recommend that we don’t leave our leaves (that’s a mouthful!) on the lawn?
The reason Village Green recommends that you don’t leave your leaves on the lawn is because they insulate your grass. That probably sounds like a good thing, until you consider that your grass gets used to this protection and then when that inevitable gust of North Texas wind blows the leaves away your grass is left unprotected and can suffer freeze damage.
Leaves also hold moisture in the lawn which probably sounds good with our water restrictions, but this can lead to fungal problems on your lawn.
St. Augustine is very susceptible to both freeze damage and fungal problems, so piles of leaves are especially bad for these lawns.
The best way to clean up leaves from the lawn is to use a mulching lawn mower every couple of weeks. If you shred them, most of the time you don’t have to bag the leaves. If you have a lot of leaves, you can still shred them with the lawn mower and then rake up what’s left (you’ll have a lot fewer bags when you’re done.)
Finally, you can leave your leaves in your landscape beds. Think of them as FREE mulch!