Sweeping up Leaves. There are reasons why you shouldn't

October 21, 2025

Discover why gardeners say you shouldn’t sweep up leaves.

It’s that time of year when the leaves fall and gardeners reach for their rakes.

However, experts say leaving fallen leaves in your garden could be the simplest act of conservation by providing food for worms and shelter for hedgehogs.

Jon Stokes, the director of trees at the Tree Council, has a plea. “It’s not necessary. In 35 years of having a garden, I’ve never once swept a leaf, because I’ve never had to. They disappear within a week because the earthworms get them. The garden is utterly full of wildlife and my grass has never suffered because of it,” he says.

“Don’t take them away and dump them at the tip, because you’ll have just taken all that goodness out of your garden. If you can’t bear to leave them where they are, get the kids to kick them into a corner, stick them in a pile, let the hedgehogs and earthworms use them.”

Earthworms feed off leaves and hedgehogs use piles of leaves to make nests.

Oliver Fry of Surrey Wildlife Trust suggests leaving some patches of garden scattered with leaves, to create habitats for insects that birds can then prey on. “I’m looking at my garden now and there are wrens and dunnocks and blackbirds and robins, all of them thriving because the leaves are providing home for small insects that they then root around in and gobble up. But I’ve still got some neat, tidier areas with more traditional planting.”

Yet for those who do not want rotting leaves lying around on their lawn, but still want to do their bit for nature, Fry recommends mowing them up into smaller bits that worms can carry off more easily. “That gives a boost to all the microbes and fungi and all those things that are working away under the soil to keep your garden in good shape. So, leaves shouldn’t be seen as something to be bunged into the bin and sent to landfill. They’re helping your plants to grow in a healthy and cost-free way,” he says.

If you want to encourage wildlife in your garden then read our article How Green is My Garden where you’ll find many tips to entice wildlife to your garden.