It’s Fall! After the first week of fall, my yard is starting to look like it’s fall.
My Burning Bush is getting berries, and the leaves are starting to turn red.
I found one bright red leaf. Pretty soon, the whole bush will be this color.
The Dogwoods have changed color. This is our first tree to come out in the spring, and the first to change color in the fall. There are also lots of red berries on the tree.
The tree below is a Sugar Maple. Up north, Sugar Maples get gorgeous color. Here in Kentucky, the leaves only turn yellow and fall off. I planted two Sugar Maples eight years ago. I still have a couple of years before they will be large enough to tap for syrup. That’s our dog Shadow in the picture.
See all the leaves under the Sugar Maple tree? Don’t burn or throw away your leaves in the fall. Use them to benefit your yard and gardens. You should really leave the leaves on the group under the tree. If you don’t like to leave them whole, you can run the mower over them to chop them up smaller. The trees and your grass will still get the benefits.
If you must rake the leaves in your yard, here are a few ways to use them.
Add the leaves, whole or chopped, to your compost pile. As long as the pile is no more than 1/3 dried leaves. If you have more leaves, compost seperately.
Use the leaves as mulch in flower gardens or vegetables gardens, at least 2 inches thick.
If you till your vegetable garden, you can work a couple of inches of leaves into the soil in the fall, and the garden will be ready to plant in the spring.
How do you use your leaves in the fall?
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Fertilizer Friday/ Flaunt Your Flowers
nice color! Our Maple didn’t fully change until January! We are in Southern California and it was between the houses. I think it was a warm spot but I always thought it was funny so see such a green tree in November when the other trees in the neighborhood had changed
It seems you have a lil more color then we do here. The leaves are just starting to slowly turn. I can’t wait for the colors. We do have some leaves on the ground. We have one tree that really needs to lose it’s leaves. Was really stressed from being dry.
Don’t you just love fall in Kentucky?!?! It’s one of the main reasons we moved back home last year. The weather in Florida was great, but I missed the change of seasons.
Hi Linda, Our burning bushes haven’t even begun to turn yet. Most of the leaves on our trees are still green. We compost our leaves here. Happy Friday!