My ninety-two year old mother complains that she has cleaned fallen leaves from her patio area three times, but they keep falling. I am not surprised that she has more energy than I do for such chores. If she was not so independent, I would advise her to wait another week or two. And no, she doesn’t want my help.

No doubt, my mother has a busier calendar, but I don’t mind letting the leaves accumulate  so that I wade through ankle deep leaves on the driveway and paths until there are no more leaves to fall. This should work out to clean up just before the Thanksgiving week, when my mother and other family will join us.

Leaves from the driveway and paths will be gathered and shredded. While leaves float from the nearby forest and the garden’s many trees, there are a few spots in the newly planted extension of the front garden where there are none. Shredded leaves will be dumped here and spread, to discourage some of the pesky weeds of newly disturbed soil and to continue to improve it.

Leaves will be left in place to decay through the rest of the garden. At some point, I’ll brush them from covering the spreading Plum yews (Cephalotaxus harringtonia ‘Prostrata’, above) and hellebores (below), but there’s no need for tidiness until the spring cleanup begins.

While hellebores will be uncovered so the winter flowers can be enjoyed, today’s loose cover of leaves will be beaten down by rain and snow. Winter flowering bulbs and trilliums will easily rise through the leaves that will show little evidence of decay before early summer.

Most areas of the garden have never been bothered by a coating of bark mulch. Fallen leaves serve this purpose with little effort and less expense. I am not bothered by the temporary untidiness and perhaps I’d be happy not to clean up before guests arrive if not for my wife’s instructions. This cannot be ignored.