One option for your yard: Leave the leaves
They will break down, provide nutrients for your lawn
While some might not be ready to say goodbye to summer, others are welcoming the autumn season with open arms. But the change in season also means leaves carpeting the ground — everywhere.
The city has not yet announced its window for collecting leaves across the city; it plans to do so in midOctober.
But if your leaves have already started to fall and you want to save yourself the back-breaking work of loading them up into bags, or you just want to try something new, there are plenty of options. Not only might they be easier for you, but they pack a variety of benefits for your yard and the environment.
Bag the leaves up for collection
One option, and perhaps the most common in the past, is to bag your leaves for the city to collect. During the designated collection window — which the city works to time with when the leaves are dropping and usually lasts about a month — residents can fill up to 40 bags every week.
The city strongly recommends that residents use plastic bags for their leaves, as paper bags can disintegrate and fall apart when being put into the trucks. Environmental advocates are quick to point out that paper bags are much more green as they will break down much quicker.
The city still composts the leaves it picks up during leaf season, now with their new partner GreenCycle. The composted leaf mulch, however, is no longer available for residents to pick up in the spring.
Leave the leaves
There are much better options of what to do with your leaves, said Brooke Alford, an urban gardening extension educator with Purdue University. The first and easiest is just to “leave the leaves.” That’s right — let them stay where they fall.
Doing so is great for caterpillars and other beneficial insects, she said, helping them get through the winter. As the leaves break down, they also release a lot of nutrients that are great for your lawn, functioning like a fertilizer.
“That’s how our ecosystems have developed over time,” Alford said, “so being able to replicate nature is the best way to go.”
Leave the leaves, with a twist
Not touching the leaves might not work for everyone: Some folks are concerned about the look of their lawn. If you fall into that category, Alford said the second-best option is for Hoosiers to rake or blow the leaves from their lawns into their beds. (Even better, she said, if homeowners use an electric blower to keep emissions down.)
The leaf layer can be piled up pretty thick on the beds, Alford said, even as high as a foot. It will shrink quickly as it decomposes and “be the best layer of mulch you can get.”
The city’s Department of Public Works also suggest residents just mow over the leaves in their lawn to mulch them onsite. While that’s not needed to help break down the leaves, Alford said, it’s still a better option than bagging up the leaves. That said, mowing the leaves can be harmful for the caterpillars and other organisms living in the leaves, according to the Xerces Society, a nonprofit conservation group.
Compost the leaves
One of Alford’s favorite options, and what she plans to do, is compost at home. There are several ways to do that: One is called a three-bin system, where you have three compost bins or structures arranged side-by-side. This allows homeowners to have different compost piles at various stages of progress.
Another option is called a hot-pile compost. Like it sounds, this is a large pile of compost with a good balance of bacterial activity that allows the yard waste to break down more quickly. Still, this option requires a bit more effort and maintenance.
Alford recommends the three-bin or hot-pile system for their ability to accommodate a large volume of leaves. Either way, the composted leaf mulch is some of the best fertilizer homeowners can use for their yard, Alford said.
The Purdue Extension educator said she can offer composting workshops to interested Homeowners Associations or neighborhood groups. Her email is bmalford@purdue.edu. The city also provides information and resources on how to start composting.
Drop the leaves off elsewhere
If you can’t keep your leaves in your yard, but you’re outside the pick-up window, the city said there are a few alternatives. First, residents are welcome to put leaves in their trash bin for regular pick-up, according to DPW spokesman Corey Ohlenkamp. But an important note: They must be bagged, he said.
There also are three alternate drop sites residents can use:
1. The city-operated drop-off at the Citizen’s Transfer Station accepts extra trash at the 2324 S. Belmont Ave. location every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The fee is $2 per carload or $5 per SUV or pickup truckload. The leaves accepted at this station will not be composted.
2. Residents can bring their leaves directly to South Side Landfill during their normal business hours: Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays until 3 p.m. Their rates are available on their website. Leaves brought to this location will be composted. South Side Landfill’s address is 2561 Kentucky Ave.
3. One other alternative is for residents to bring their leaves directly to GreenCycle, a landscaping company in Indianapolis. It has a handful of locations around the city, and they will accept leaves during their normal business hours of Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. There is a $20 fee to dropoff leaves, and they will be composted. However, GreenCycle does not accept plastic bags.
For more information, residents can also contact the city’s Department of Public Works at 317-327-4000.
Call IndyStar reporter Sarah Bowman at 317-444-6129 or email at sarah.bowman@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @IndyStarSarah. Connect with IndyStar’s environmental reporters: Join The Scrub on Facebook. IndyStar’s environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.