Many gardening guides recommend shredding foliage. But why does that actually make sense? We also recommend this advice to you and also inform you about the resulting benefits. Furthermore, we support you with helpful tips to find the best method.
Shredded foliage is less bulky and decomposes better
Shredding leaves - why does it make sense?
It is now well known in gardening circles that collected leaves do not belong in the bio bin. As winter protection or natural fertilizer, the avoidably annoying leaves have an effective use. To allow organic matter to form, first store your foliage on top of the compost heap. If the amount is too large, however, this is not easily possible.
According to expert opinion, a compost heap should only be 20% leaves. So what to do with the rest of the leaves? To make storage as space-saving as possible, it is best to chop up your leaves.
In addition, there is another reason that speaks in favor of 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. Decomposition takes a long time, especially if the compost heap is in a very dry location. The tree species mentioned include:
- oak trees
- plane trees
- walnut trees
Various methods
There are several options for shredding leaves. Of course, you should make use of a machine for this process. On the one hand there would be the shredder. However, it is only suitable for comparatively small amounts of foliage. You also have to sweep the leaves together beforehand.
When collecting leaves with the lawn tractor, you are spared the preparatory work. Here the leaves not only end up in the collection basket, but are immediately shredded thanks to the cutters.