If you?re like some of my neighbors, now is the time of year when you?re tired of moving fallen leaves from one place in your yard to another. Maybe you end up stuffing them into plastic bags, or burning them (shame on you!), or you decide to call a pile of leaves a "compost pile."

Let's define terms – a "deck" is not the same as a "patio". The latter is built diActually, the most environmentally sensible thing to do is leave them where they fall. Dead leaves from your native trees and shrubs can be an excellent mulch. And they?re free!

A carpet of leaves protects the soil from compaction and erosion. It protects fragile roots (which are usually near the surface) from the cold. To hasten decomposition, you can shred them into little pieces by running a lawn mower over them. By far the worst thing you can do is rake them all up, leaving bare ground exposed to the elements.

Most of what we have in Denton are oak trees.

All spring and summer, oak leaves store up nutrients roughly equivalent to the nutrients in dried manure ? which we?ll happily pay good money for. About now, these same leaves die and fall to the ground, and start decomposing ? releasing all that stored nutrition. (It?s a natural, yearly cycle that has happened since before our species walked upright.)

Raking the leaves interferes with this natural cycle and puts a lot of stress on plants. Left in place, however, fallen leaves slowly decompose into an excellent soil ingredient; leaves mixed with your soil will immediately start decomposing to loosen the soil and noticeably improve plant growth. Or leaves can be mixed with other stuff to make an excellent compost.

The only drawback to this practice that I know of is that sometimes too many leaves can form a mat and smother a plant, cutting it off completely from sunlight, air or water. To combat this (and make your neighbors question your sanity) you can run your lawn mower over the fallen leaves a few times ? shredding them into smaller pieces that tend to decompose faster and resist matting.

This works exceptionally well on lawns. Your lawn will green up earlier in the spring and will resist browning in the heat. If you don?t have very many leaves, they will probably disappear from view (by decomposing and filtering down into the soil) after a few good rains. Doing this lets you skip one of your yearly fertilizer applications.

Don?t get me wrong. Leaves can, and do, come to rest in the wrong places sometimes. So if they?re on your driveway, sidewalk, porch or deck, rake or blow them away.

But when they fall on soil, look at them as a free gift from nature ? not as a burden.

I?ll be the first to admit that I?m no chemist. However, I?m told that fallen leaves contain carbon and nitrogen compounds, which all plants crave.

What?s more, some organic compounds (such as amino acids) resulting from leaf decomposition can be absorbed directly by plants, for more vigorous growth. Bare ground (like a vacuum) is something that nature abhors.

Look at that blanket of leaves on the ground. It?s part of a yearly cycle that was created well before you and I were born.

What you see instead is a very generous, nutritious gift to your landscape—a gift that shouldn?t be thrown away, pushed aside or sent to the landfill.

Owen Yost is an area Landscape Architect specializing in designing low-maintenance landscapes incorporating native plants with hardscape such as decking, fences, terraces, walkways, walls etc. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Keep Denton Beautiful and the Native Plant Society of Texas. His Denton office is at 4516 Coyote Point; call 940.382-2099 or 383-9655. E-mail, Yost87@charter.net