What do you do when there isn't much lawn but you still have loads of leaves to clear?

Rake or blow the leaves into long strips on the driveway, (the strips can be up to 2 ft deep) and mow over them with your mower. The pile will reduce in volume about 10-fold and you can blow the mulch back onto the landscape beds or around trees & shrubs.

The one “problem” area in your landscape may be your perennial beds including any ground cover areas. Whole fallen leaves can be heavy and damp (especially oak and sycamore) and may create bad air flow and drainage, leading to risk of perennial crown rot in some species. Carefully pull, vacuum, or blow off the leaves from the beds, then shred and apply the fluffy mulch directly back onto the same beds.

To see just how great natural leaf mulch can look, check out this Fine Gardening video of gardener Sydney Eddison showing how she uses shredded leaves to mulch her perennial beds.

How can I learn more about composting?

Composting is not a very difficult process to learn or to implement. It is nature’s way of recycling and returning valuable organic matter and nutrients to the soil to be used again.

How can I learn more about Vermiposting?

Composting kitchen scraps with red worms is simple, effective and fun for the kids, too!

Can I Really Make Use of Toolbox Materials For Free?

Yes you can, under the Creative Commons license we've indicated.

Here are some further related questions we've received:

Can I have the  the videos and educational material put on our town's website or do I need to put a link to leleny.org?
You can post on your website. Linking to LELENY.org simply ensures the latest versions (revisions) are being used. But if you decide to host the files on your server, a single acknowledgement of the source / CC license and link back to our site homepage would suffice. One note - the latest video PSA should be used unmodified, keeping credits and voiceover intact.

How do I properly attribute items that I've modified to leleny.org?
There are endless variations on the CC copyright acknowledgement but something as simple and direct as "Used and modified under Creative Commons license from LELENY.ORG" would suffice.

Can modifications include putting the my town's logo and our Environmental Board's logo on the materials?
Most certainly! We encourage that. Many of our local munis have done just that and have included their own URLS and contact info as appropriate.

Could I modify the material to include recommendations for using leaves to much garden beds or home compost them?
Yes. A lot of our materials suggest using shredded leaf mulch as landscape mulch - I assume you are specifically referring to using on veggie beds? Sounds like a great idea! Our literature and PP presentations also recommends using excess shredded leaves for composting (in home compost piles or bins).

May I modify the title to add something like "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em - Leave our leaves in place just as Mother Nature intended!"
Sure! Do whatever you think will best attract and influence your local audience. We recommend keeping the logo intact as a strong visual branding. But tag lines, etc. are whatever you want.

Please let us know if you've started your own local LELE initiative and if you've found our Toolbox materials or website to be useful.