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Why you don't need to bother raking up dead leaves from your lawn

When the leaves start falling, we can spend hours removing them from our lawns. But leaving them where they are is often better for the grass, says James Wong

By James Wong

6 December 2023

Rake with fallen leaves in autumn. Man cleans the autumn park from yellow leaves. Volunteering, cleaning, and ecology concept. Seasonal gardening.; Shutterstock ID 2026442297; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Max belchanko/Shutterstock

IT IS late autumn where I live in London – a time of year that sees millions of gardeners like me, across the northern hemisphere, donning their thickest jumpers and spending hours raking giant piles of leaves into plastic bags at the end of driveways. In the US alone, nearly 10 million tonnes of garden waste go to landfill every year. That is a phenomenal amount of effort, not just from an environmental perspective but frankly from that of our creaking backs, too. So wouldn’t it be great if there was an alternative?

Strangely, despite it being one of the most…

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