Mother Nature is making this generous offer. Many of my neighbors or their mow n' blow gardeners invest hours of toil cleaning fallen leaves out of their yards, and for years I have been observing city crews blowing leaves out of Suisun City landscaping beds and hauling away great bags of them. All of which puzzles me, because fallen leaves are great natural mulch that could benefit homeowners and city alike.

The soil underlying our Victorian Harbor neighborhood is awful—rocks and concrete embedded in clay. But now there is a layer of rich topsoil in my yard, getting deeper by the year. How? Not by buying garden soil and trucking it in. Rather, our neighborhood is fortunate to have a lot of trees, and for years I have heaped the fallen leaves up in my flower beds as ground cover. This mulch is handsome and gradually decomposes in the course of the year, enriching the soil. Moreover, those beds stay almost weed-free.

If only Suisun City landscaping beds could have so few weeds! In recent years, city workers have not been able to keep up with weed growth, and many neighborhoods look unkempt. Granted, gutters and sidewalks need to be kept clean of fallen leaves, but there would be many benefits if the Public Works Department left several inches of leaf mulch in landscaping beds. It would conserve water, improve the soil so that less fertilizer is needed, suppress winter weeds, and reduce leaf removal work. We homeowners pay an annual assessment to cover landscaping costs, including irrigation water. If the city were to mulch with fallen leaves, it would save us money while reducing the workload of city crews.

Our neighborhood street trees began shedding leaves almost as soon as they budded out this spring—I assume it's a defense against drought. Now it's October, time for the remaining leaves to start raining down. High time to embrace Mother Nature's offer of free mulch!