Falling for leafmould

Monty reveals how he makes and uses leafmould at Longmeadow, and shows how to create this invaluable material for free

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The leaves are tumbling and streaming from the trees like fallen dreams left scattered on the ground.

The harvest is over, the year is folding in on itself and all those bright yesterdays are lost. These are dark days and getting darker yet. Well, up to a point. I go along with most of those sentiments - I hate our northern Novembers and Decembers, and would happily leave these shores the day the clocks change and not see them again until the middle of February - but I am a huge fan of fallen leaves. The more the better, and I treasure every last one.

The beauty of autumn is, of course, measured largely by its leaves. I love the Americanism ‘fall’ for autumn. In every way it perfectly suits the season with its falling leaves. The degree of colour-change in autumn is dependent upon late-summer weather, when hot days and cold nights stimulate the production of chemicals that produce red pigmentation. Most leaves appear to turn yellow in autumn but in fact this is just a revelation of their natural base colour, which is overlain by green pigment produced as a result of chlorophyll. When the chlorophyll fades in autumn, the yellow is then revealed. Incidentally, trees with yellow summer leaves containing less chlorophyll - such as the ubiquitous Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’ or other yellow forms of more usually green trees, like the golden Canadian poplar (Populus x canadensis ‘Aurea’) - will always be slower growing than trees with green leaves, as they are starved of the supply of sugars that chlorophyll helps deliver. But the transition from yellow to orange or red depends on the weather.