The answer is yes with one caveat: invest in a quality mulching kit/mower.
Most new lawn mowers are equipped with mulching blades that chop leaf clippings into small pieces. The mower redistributes the mulched leaves across your lawn’s surface.
This eliminates the need to rake and bag leaves – yea! 🙂
Although some detractors will say that leaving mulched leaves on your lawn is harmful, the University of Michigan recently conducted a study that determined there were no discernible differences between lawns who had their leaves bagged versus those where the leaves were mulched and redistributed.
In fact, when mulched leaves are left on a lawn, they reintroduce valuable organic matter back into your lawn’s soil.
What to Look For In a Mulching Mower
You probably want a good self-propelled mower to help get through the leaves easily.
Lawn mowers are heavy. Pushing a mower that isn’t self propelled is going to be difficult and not much fun and may also lead to inconsistent cuts.
Secondly, the mower should have a high lift mulching blade. When it comes mulching leaves, the blade of a standard lawn mower simply is not going to work as well as a mulching blade.
“High lift” blades are aggressive. They have a unique twist and serrations along the edge of the blade. The design increases the movement of the air beneath the deck and chops up the leaves into fine particles.
Also, make sure your blades are sharp. Dull blades won’t do nearly as good of a job and can actually hard the grass. They can “rip” the grass instead of providing a clean cut which can allow disease to form.
Here is a quick video on how to sharpen your mower blades – its a pretty simple process:
Make sure your mulching mower has plenty of power. To successfully mulch leaves, power is required. In this case, the more powerful your mower, the better.
Additional Tips For Mulching Leaves With a Mower
Even after you’ve picked out the right mower, there are still a few things you’ll need to be cognizant of:
- Before mulching leaves, always make sure that they are dry. Wet leaves will not mulch as smoothly and can result in a clogged mower and an uneven looking lawn.
- After mulching leaves, you should be able to see a consistent canopy of green grass. If not, then your leaves are not being chopped up sufficiently.
- If your lawn or the land surrounding your home is thickly wooded, it may be necessary to mow twice a week in order to keep ahead of the pace at which they fall.
- Oak trees tend to shed their leaves much later in the season than other types of trees. It is possible that you might find yourself mowing and mulching leaves in the middle of December, but remember that you’ll be recycling valuable nutrients back into the ground, so your efforts will be well worth it!
- It is a good idea to fertilize your lawn during the fall months. This is a critical time of the year to fertilize and nurture your lawn. Fertilizer will also assist the important microbes in the soil when it comes to breaking down mulched leaves.
In Conclusion
Additional research has demonstrated that regular mowing and mulching leaves will assist your lawn in growing spring grass earlier and reduce the amount of weeds and winter annuals that grow.
This is due to the fact that the mulched leaves essentially act a ground cover that prevent the weeds from getting the sunlight they need to grow.
Mulching your leaves is environmentally friendly, and it’ll reduce the amount of time that you need to spend maintaining your lawn.