Foliage and rice piles The gold of the natural garden

The leaves fall from the trees, and autumn is good for sawing branches of trees. Instead of disposing of the accumulated wood and the fallen leaves as "waste", you can create a home for endangered animals. In the nature garden fallen foliage is gold.

Leaf blower and leaf blower - wrecking ball for animal housing
Comes autumn, then roar on the sidewalk and in the garden colony, the leaf blowers and leaf blowers. Every little leaf is removed as "garbage" from the last corners of the garden. Ecologically similar to a wrecking ball: insects and hedgehogs, birds and amphibians need the leaves to hibernate, to hide and to find food.

Foliage, branch cut and compost soil can be excellently made into a raised bed. Enjoy the summer of flowers and create a refuge for animals (Photo Dr. Utz Anhalt)

Death for insects
With the leaves suck the "Saubermacher" insects and other invertebrates immediately with a. The birds take their food and smaller animals kill them.

Create piles of leaves
The good old heap of leaves offers a viable alternative. When they return the fallen leaves to a corner of the garden, newts and toads, wren and robins, hedgehogs and shrews thank them.

Apartment house Foliage and rice piles
Lay a heap of layers of leaves and knots. So you provide a multi-storey pet hotel in the natural garden. Caterpillars and butterflies retreat under the leaves, blackbirds and tits find food in winter.

A blessing for the garden
Above all, they help themselves. These animals only keep the garden fertile. The foliage rots together with the wood and provides next year for an excellent compost. In the spring, when the hard time is over and the winter guests come out, they can scatter it on the beds.

Foliage as thermal insulation
You can also lay the foliage at the base of trees, cover strawberries with it or sprinkle over sensitive flower bulbs. This creates a natural antifreeze and ensures that your plants thrive.

Branch foliage heap for hedgehogs
A tree branch heap provides an excellent shelter for hedgehogs to hibernate. All you need is abundant foliage, thick branches and the branches that occur when cutting the firs, the lilac, etc. They stack the thick branches in such a way that inside the heap a cavity of about 30 square centimeters results, in which no water should collect.

Stack branches
For the cavity, cut the thick branches to about 1 m and then layer them in three layers. At the top, place shorter branch pieces on it. Cover the cavity with as much foliage as possible. On top of that, put branches and twigs so that the foliage does not blow away. If you later find more foliage, you can easily put it on the pile.

Create a raised bed
You do not like "wild leaves"? Or does their gardening order require you to "dispose of" branch-cut? Just lay a raised bed: First you pile up brushwood, branch cut and fresh compost, on it you throw foliage, then again a layer of branch cut and then leaves again.

To get in shape
They now cut thick branches so they can use them as piles and "slats" to shape the bed. You do not need nails or wire to do this, but place long branch pieces in branch forks, using the "waste" of grapevines, ivy etc. as "ropes". On top of that, lay a layer of humus-rich compost of at least 20 cm, which you can replenish again and again.

Newts in the cellar, flowers on the roof terrace
Such a raised bed combines the ecological benefits of deciduous, brushwood and compost heaps with the aesthetics of flower or herb beds and also looks "tidy".

Wildflowers and wild bees
In the ground, you can plant crocuses, tulips or daffodils in autumn, and grow a wildflower mixture in the summer. Not only do they provide wildbees and butterflies with a home for the winter, they also take care of the insect pasture in summer. On the doorstep you face the insect killing. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)