Leaf Team Comes to the Asian Collections

One of my favorite tools for "leaf management" is "leaf team". In the late fall/early winter, all the gardeners work together twice a week on the leaves in a particular collection. Every collection gets one day and this was ours. We did a lot including blowing the leaves off the Camellias on the west side of the road, clearing the groundcovers in the Japanese Woodland, and removing leaves from the groundcovers, including turf, around the GCA circle. In the picture Amanda, Michael, and Coley finish blowing the leaves into a pile; Nathan has already began to tarp.

I would estimate that today, of all the leaves we addressed, we "rearranged" about 65 percent, and so only put about 1/3 out for pickup. Even these leaves will eventually be returned to the garden after being ground and slightly aged.

We lucked out totally so far as weather is concerned. The rain forecast for today held off so that we were able to get out project in. If it falls tonight, two inches, it'll serve to mat down the leaves that we moved to other places; hopefully enough so that they'll stay put and decompose in place. That was good, but better still was the fact that 3+ weeks ago the leaves on the large trees were green and by today they were pretty much down. That means they were still largely dry and hadn't had time to work their way into twiggy traps. They were easy to deal with. Some years are good, some bad, and I guess most somewhere in the middle. This has been a great leaf season so far.