A large and beautiful, old deciduous tree in your garden or the neighbouring park? Lots of fruit trees in the garden? They all look wonderful but in the Autumn they shed a lot of leaves that have to be disposed of? What’s the best thing to do with them?

Option one: in Autumn, gather the leaves into one big pile and leave them. They can also be used effectively to cover roses etc., securing them with twigs and branches. By spring, the leaves will have reduced in volume making them easier to dispose of. Thus they provide effective winter protection of the plants as well as a winter home for small animals.

Leaves also make fantastic compost. They can be added to the compost heap in autumn (if you don’t want to use them as described above) or else in spring. Often, the composter is too small to accommodate all of the leaves at once, in which case, they can be left in a pile and added to the composter in spring, by which time they will have reduced in volume.

As well as being good for producing compost, leaves also make an excellent fertiliser and moisturiser for the beds and borders. So in autumn you can leave them on the beds and dig them in spring. They will then rot and form compost. If the leaves fall on mulched areas, a new layer of mulch should be added in spring and the leaves will rot more quickly and supplement the mulch.

If there are lots of leaves on your lawn, simply run the lawnmower over them, which will reduce their volume considerably. Many towns have recycling centres where garden waste can usually be disposed of without charge. If you have a large garden, use a trailer or large garden sacks.