November gardening tips: Rake leaves

Raking the leaves before they take over is a wise move – avoid noisy leaf blowers

8yZ4u8SfbBwkarsqgJSUsX.jpg
Fallen leaves
Country Life's avatar
By
published
in Features

** If you want to buy any of the plants mentioned below for your own garden, visit www.countrylife.co.uk/nursery

and type or copy and paste the name into the search. Plants are

delivered in sturdy boxes in a matter of days from one of the finest

nurseries in the country. **

Languid aesthetes admire the effect of fallen leaves on lawns, but others will soon have to clear them away to prevent an unholy mess developing. Resist the racket of the leaf-blower and turn instead to the silent rhythms of the spring-tine rake and stiff broom. The piles of leaves are best transferred to barrow and bin using a pair of thin boards. Most can be composted to yield a lovely dark brown, crumbly mulch, but in outer corners of the shrubbery, you might just as well push them gently under the lowest branches and leave nature to take its course.

* Subscribe to Country Life and save 40%

Country Life
Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.

Latest