Best time to remove dead leaves from flower beds?

When is the best time to remove dead leaves from your flower beds..the fall or the spring? Is it beneficial to let them stay there all winter? When in the spring should you rake them out? I find that I seem to do just as much clean up in the spring whether I do any removal of leaves in the fall or not.

Best time to remove dead leaves from flower beds?
Ultimately, you should leave them and let them compost. That would be best for the soil. Realistically, it can smother desirable plants. I would do it in the spring, since many animals overwinter in leaf litter. But the bonfires in the fall are always excellent....
Reply:Leave them until spring. The leaves will provide much needed nutrients to the soil during the winter. They also help to protect roots and such as an insulator against the cold. When you can start to see new life coming from the ground in spring, that is the time to clear the old leaves away.
Reply:According to my landscaper, do not remove the leaves. It acts as food for plants. He turns it in the soil throughout the fall and then in the spring. By that time the leaves are pretty crushed up...all he does is to add decorative mulch over it.
Reply:I like to remove leaves in the fall, if they are left to do in the spring everything is always such a mess because of the water that they have absorbed and the deterioration.
Reply:Yes, it is beneficial to let them stay there all winter? By the time spring comes, they will be tiny bits of mulch and will be good for your soil.



You can also bag dry leaves, close the bag, crush them up with your hands while in the bag (OR let kids jump up and down on the bags) and put this in your beds. GREAT stuff.

bloom-