Leonard Moorehead, the Urban Gardener: Leaf Harvests

Sunday, November 08, 2015

Leonard Moorehead, GoLocalProv Gardening Expert

Ours is a beautiful world. Every sense is alive. Walk on, around each corner maples enunciate scarlet. Gold gilds gingko balboa trees. Deep russet affirms sturdy oaks. Red and golden berries forgive bittersweet’s secrets. Beeches rustle, oaks offer somber timbre and nothing equals leaves in flight. 

Obedient to themselves our colorful leaves depart from trees and cover sidewalks, parking lots, and busy streets in utter disregard to urban life. Their inconvenient judgment and relies upon whimsical hope. Brave beyond courage, leaves descend. Our autumn windfall’s breathtaking arrogance ignores signs, regulations, signals and lights. Colorful leaves pile up, often in 30 gallon heavy duty brown paper bags on the sidewalk. 

Gardeners live on the shorelines between our relentless movement and the natural world. Our best efforts are to duplicate as much as possible nature’s natural harmony. Leaves are the primary source of organic materials in soils. Busy urbanites and civic workers gather up leaves from yards and storm drains alike. Gardeners are as active as our perennial nemesis, the ubiquitous gray squirrels hiding acorns in our plots and containers. Urban garden plots absorb enormous amounts of leaves with ease. Well mixed with existing soils, leaves offer a bonanza of vital nutrients as well as moisture absorbing capacities. 

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Blessed are those with leaf shredders.  Leaves decompose in direct ratio to the amount of surfaces exposed to moisture and soil borne micro-organisms. Kept moist, usually rainfall suffices, leaves are consumed by earthworms and simpler life forms during the far from dormant “off” season months. Humus from this abundant and free resource is top notch. Many gardeners enjoy success simply burying leaves in the traditional “turning over” of the fall garden. A long handled shovel is all it takes to dig into friable humus and bury under the permanent mulch, debris and odds n ends remaining from the summer months. Never allow soil to remain exposed to wind and rain. Promptly cover with another mulch, renew. 

Do you find healthy tulip, daffodil, crocus or snowdrops when turning over soil? Replant! Separate smaller bulbs, such as tulips and replant nearby with a helping handful of bone meal. Browse favorite nurseries and outlets for spring bulbs to plant now. Fuss if you wish or vote for less expensive general mixes and have fun choosing new colors, disease resistance, and one prays for those distasteful to squirrels such as any member of the narcissus family.  Lots of spring bulbs are reliable for many years, such as daffodils. However, if one treats spring bulbs as annuals and plants repeatedly, an amusing array of spring bulbs develops. 

Colonies of muscari: the grape hyacinths, are among the so called minor spring bulbs. Do not underestimate their ability to charm. Grape hyacinths form delightful drifts of blue color. Strength in numbers counts here, simply scatter the muscari in partial to full spring sunshine. A random planting introduces whimsy into an often highly regulated space. A crowd of grape hyacinths is welcome during temperamental April. They thrive in soils kept under mulch despite their diminutive height. Grape hyacinths are famously blue although white and mixed colored varieties have the same robust manners. Long ago mine surrendered to asparagus and raspberries only to reappear with green shoots in the fall. Plant them among strawberries and the margins of the garden. Muscari are sold in bags of 50, do not be dismayed. Be generous and plant several bags. Not only will they spread, a side benefit, but distributing them throughout the garden helps evade possible changes in the garden such as light absorbing fruit trees or successful privacy screens, bamboo for example, which have changed the amount of sunlight reaching the garden. 

Keep small stakes handy while grooming and planting the fall garden. My never doubtful but sometimes faulty memory has often overlooked perennial Bleeding Heart or lilies. A stake labeled “Delphinium” protects attempts to form beds of expensive transplants or uncertain self-sown foxgloves. Foxgloves roam a bit. A stake driven nearby is a handy reminder to not cultivate or bury under very thick mulches. Remember those shredded leaves? A foot thick layer put down last year under and around the goji berry trellis has sunk and transformed into wonderful humus. Several repetitions translate into a thick trellis of robust goji full of berries since mid-summer. Rather bland to my taste and on the small side of the berry world, goji vines are best encouraged upwards. They readily root whenever covered by shredded leaves or mulch. Migrating birds have discovered the goji trellis and pause to eat the red berries. 

As you tuck in spring bulbs discover the optimism within all gardeners. Vote for the future. Gather up bags of leaves, bury, shred or compost them in layered piles of leaves, soil, peat, and old compost. Establish colonies of spring bulbs, ever hopeful they will not only bloom next spring but multiply and provide endless visual pleasure to yourself and others. Mark with re-usable stakes perennials to not be disturbed or buried too deeply under winter mulch. While in the garden, determine the sunniest location for the winter months. This is where a cold frame should be and where your winter salad and cold tolerant beets and kale may be the bright spots. Sow now, pull back mulches enough to plant and shoulder in after the plants are established. A thick mulch will blanket soil and protect from freezing. Many zone 6 winters have done their best to freeze the soil and failed to penetrate the thick mulch. 

Likewise, devote a section of the garden to a nursery. Trim off the blooms from potted chrysanthemums, remove from their root bound pots, break apart the dense roots and plant into the nursery, water. New sprouts will quickly emerge on the margins, closely pack in mulch until only the green leaves and cut stems are visible. Nurseries are handy places to temporarily offer cuttings and divisions a good home until next spring. Move them into better locations next year or enjoy the pleasure of giving away rooted forsythia, privet, hollies and fruits from pruned mother plants. 
Shorter days raise our expectations for winter. Look further, spring is certain to come, greet another year with a fabulous display of grape hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and other favorites. Can’t wait for spring? Plant hellebore, the Lenten Rose, and astonish friend and foe with blooms in the snow. Until then, bring home the full brown paper bags of leaves on our city side- walks. Give them a home in the right place: the garden. 

Leonard Moorehead is a life- long gardener. He practices organic-bio/dynamic gardening techniques in a side lot surrounded by city neighborhoods in Providence, RI. His adventures in composting, wood chips, manure, seaweed, hay and enormous amounts of leaves are minor distractions to the joy of cultivating the soil with flowers, herbs, vegetables, berries, and dwarf fruit tree. 

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