Photo by Nikki Krieg.
Southern Sugar Maple
Southern Sugar Maple
Fall is here! It’s a precious time for any Louisianan, exhausted from months of trying summer heat. I observe a mood shift in most everyone I know. A lot of my community has the same sudden thought … It's time to get back out into our gardens and immerse ourselves in the natural world, whether that be a suburban backyard, woods nearby, or some hanging baskets swaying over your porch.
We are lucky to live in an intensely green world down here. We are surrounded by evergreen pines, hollies, and magnolias; lush tropicals; leaves clinging to our trees most of the year. Traditional Louisiana gardens, often centered around exotic azaleas and heirloom camellias, stay largely green year-round. But when embracing natives and exploring the natural world outside your city, you can also find plenty of fall color.
Our fall color is less dramatic than other parts of the country but we do have a fall season. Though short, it's all the more precious. I especially love driving the country roads and seeing Virginia Creeper and Poison Ivy (among other deciduous vines) zigzagging their way brightly across the woods. One of my old horticulture professors was obsessed with talking about “fall color” and he claimed poison ivy had the best fall color of all. (Even plants with negative connotations have their place in this world). A client of mine once described the ever-changing fall colors in her yard as “slow motion fireworks”. That image has never left me.
The leaves of deciduous plants are full of chlorophyll. Plants put a lot of their resources into producing chlorophyll (food from the sun), which manifests as green. Green is the dominating pigment in leaves until the tree decides to stop producing chlorophyll and prepare for winter. These other hues (red, yellow, purple) have been just overshadowed by the intense green chlorophyll until now. Hey presto . . . fall color! When temps change and plants decide to prepare for winter and store their resources within themselves, they stop working so hard to produce chlorophyll, then the other pigments are given the opportunity to show off, before the leaf falls off altogether. The plant takes a break, resting through the winter, to then use all that stored energy for brand new life come spring. This is the cycle of life in a tiny tree nutshell.
As the temps do their (very) slow shift, leaves change color, and the live oaks begin their fall leaf drop, all of my gardening comrades and I have one goal right about now. And that is to get as many bags of leaves off the side of the road as possible. We need these leaves for our gardens and compost bins. If we collect enough bags, we could have enough to get us all the way through the year until next fall. That is the dream. One yard man's bagged refuse is a gumptious gardener’s gold.
The first leaf hoarder I ever knew was my friend and garden mentor, Lindsey. I call Lindsey my fairy garden mother. Surrounded by shady woodland species, tall wildflowers, multi-generation bonsais, and infinite eclectic roadside found objects—she took my old friend and I under her wing and taught us all she knew about plants and critters within her small magical neighborhood backyard. Almost nothing in her garden was purchased. She is resourceful and always finds ways to garden and create beauty for no cost. One of her favorite pastimes is to get in her giant old blue van and collect leaves each fall. It was a seasonal family affair for her. I was a young gardener and no one showed me, until then, the value of fallen leaves.
I am now just like Lindsey. Each fall, I fill my truck and baby trailer to the brim as many times as I can with other people’s bagged leaves. Where my home is, in the woods of St. Francisville, I get a lot of leaf fall that naturally mulches the beds around my home. In fact, we often get too much leaf fall and have to remove some so that it does not choke out the more tender perennials we have planted around the house. I still collect these in bags though. I can never get enough, there are so many uses for leaves! Here are a few ways to use leaves in your yard, or potentially hoarded from neighborhood streets.
Free mulch
When in the world did we start buying mulches? Leaves are an excellent natural mulch and the OG mulch solution. Spread as thick of a layer as you like throughout your garden. Once the leaf mulch has been watered well, the leaves lock together and create a lovely strong layer of mulch to help with moisture control and weed suppression.
Fertilizer
Leaves fall for a reason within the framework of the natural world. That free mulch quickly breaks down into rich organic matter that “fertilizes” your soil. Leaves are incredibly nutrient dense, providing all the nutrients needed for a lively and active garden.
Composting
Some people believe that we should work for our home compost to have a certain level of “green matter” (rich in nitrogen) vs. “brown matter” (rich in carbon). Leaves are an excellent source of “brown matter”. I have friends who mow over their leaves before adding them to their bins to get them to break down quickly. I am a lazy gardener and I just throw my leaves straight in as I find them. Any which way, leaves are one of the best things you could add to support the structure of your compost!
Habitat
Leaving your leaves on the ground, or adding found leaves if you do not get them in your garden naturally, is one of the greatest things you can personally do, within your garden, to encourage wildlife habitat. By leaving your leaves, you are creating a cozy shelter and food source for pollinators and other critters. If an insect or animal is not migrating, they usually spend their entire life near where you find them around your property. This benefits insects, but also lizards, frogs, turtles, birds, and small mammals.
Fall color means leaves shift, then fall—leaving empty airspace. Embrace this. What is the point of seasons (in gardens, in life) if things never change?
For me, fall is a time of transition, a time for deep breath, for renewal and reflection. It is a time of great relief and a blessing from the cosmos for making it through another Louisiana summer; a time to look forward and prepare for the holidays, a time for reenvisioning. Green fades, previously unseen hues emerge to create a fleeting masterpiece.
