Ward Parkway Plaza Neighborhood Association

Recycle your leaves into fertilizer

This fall mulch your leaves and leave them on your lawn instead of collecting them for disposal. Mulched leaves quickly decompose and return nutrients to the soil naturally.

Benefits:

• Provides a natural lawn fertilizer
• Saves time and effort from raking, blowing and bagging
• Saves money on water, fertilizer and disposal costs
• Conserves water and protects waterways from runoff pollution
• Conserves landfill space

How-to:

Take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaves on your lawn. You want to reduce your leaf clutter to dime-size pieces. You'll know you're done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer. Once the leaf bits settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them. Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and any kind of leaves can be chopped up. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter.

If you have more leaves than you can handle, many businesses throughout the metro area provide pick-up and drop-off services.

For more information, visit www.RecycleSpot.org or call (816) 474-TEAM (8326).