Many garden guides recommend shredding leaves. But why does that actually make sense? We also recommend this advice to you and also inform you about the resulting benefits. We will also support you with helpful tips to find the best method.
Why should you shred leaves?
Shredding leaves makes sense to enable space-saving storage and faster composting. It can serve as a natural fertilizer or winter protection. Shredded leaves rot more quickly, especially in slow-rotting tree species such as oak, plane and walnut trees.
Shredding leaves - why does it make sense?
It is now known in gardening circles that collected leaves do not belong in the organic waste bin. The avoidably annoying leaves have an effective use as winter protection or natural fertilizer. To allow organic material to form, first store your leaves in the compost pile. However, if the amount is too large, this is not easily possible. According to expert opinions, a compost heap should only consist of 20% leaves. So where do the remaining leaves go? To ensure that storage is as space-saving as possible, it is best to shred your leaves.
There is also another reason for shredding: the leaves of some tree species rot much more slowly than other leaves. It can take two to three years for organic material to form from the compost. Especially if the compost heap is in a very dry location, decomposition takes a long time. The tree species in question include:
- Oaks
- Plane trees
- Walnut trees
Various methods
There are several options to choose from for shredding leaves. Of course, you should use a machine for this process. On the one hand there is the chipper. However, it is only suitable for comparatively small amounts of leaves. You also have to sweep up the leaves beforehand. When collecting leaves with the lawn tractor, you are spared the preparatory work. Here the leaves not only end up in the collecting basket, but are immediately shredded thanks to the cutting units.
