If you’re lucky enough to live in a part of the city with significant numbers of leaf-producing trees, get ready for Leaf Day!

If you live in one of Portland’s leaf service zones, just rake your leaves into the street for the city to scoop up on your district’s designated day, from early November to mid-December.

You can prepare for your designated Leaf Day by following the city’s guidelines, which include moving vehicles from the street and only raking leaves (yard debris goes in your green Portland Composts bin) by the curb.

Residents of Portland’s Leaf Districts are billed $15 to $30 because the city spends extra time clearing the streets in these well-canopied neighborhoods. It’s a great deal if you have a lot of leaves and you don’t want to keep them on site.

Getting leaves off your lawn keeps it healthy. Raking leaves off pavement increases safety and acts as preventative care for streets and sewers. Slippery leaves can be dangerous for pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars. Leaves can also clog sewer drains, which can be dangerous, unhealthy, and costly to fix. In addition, leaves that collect in streets can degrade the street surface by wearing away pavement and requiring the city to repave, ultimately making an extra cost for residents.

You can turn your lawn cuttings, leaves, and kitchen scraps into plant food yourself and create your own organic, nutrient-rich soil. Metro offers easy-to-follow tips on composting and sells a variety of compost bins at reasonable costs. Choose the composting method that suits you and your family – from worm bins to open-air or hot composting. Portland Parks & Recreation and Clackamas Community College even offer demonstration sites where you can learn about composting firsthand.

 

Leaves provide much-needed nutrients and plant material to your home compost bin. They can help jump-start your next batch of compost after the leaves have been harvested in the fall. If you shred the leaves before adding them to your compost, they’ll decompose more quickly.

 

Your composting will make dark, crumbly, nutrition-rich organic material. You can use the mulch to enhance the soil in your garden, enrich your lawn, and/or add it around the base of your trees and shrubs. Using mulch that's several inches thick, with a three-inch clearance directly around the trunk, will help your trees grow, minimize weed growth, and reduce your watering costs.

 

Alternately, instead of adding leaves to compost, you can use shredded leaves directly as mulch around plants and trees to control weeds during the winter and to keep moisture in the soil during dryer times.

 

Home composting saves money by cutting back on the cost of fertilizer and store-bought mulch as well as keeping harmful chemicals out of our environment.