UW – Extension Wood County – Horticulture Educator – September ‘25

Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapid Support, probably brought you by Cracket Sceptic for

this September 11, 2025.

Have your host James here, and welcoming back to the studio, our good friend Janelle Weir,

Horticultural Educator, UW Division of Extension, Wood County, Janelle Gooddevian Studio.

You know, it's good to be back, I always enjoy our conversations.

It feels like it's always been forever since we get to talk, and I make no bones about

this, I'm very honest with the audience, I learn every time you're here, and my favorite

thing to do is learning, so it's always great hanging out with you.

And then you bring a topic here that is right in my wheelhouse, one I love so much, and

the changing of the seasons, and the changing of these leaves and foliage, and fall leaf

color changes.

We're going to dive into that today.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think when I think about this time of year, and I think about the

leaves changing their colors, and the wise, and the house that it all happens, you know,

I get kind of excited, because I'm always really, really interested in learning lessons

from other nature, and when we really dig into the wise and the house of the leaves changing

their colors this time of year, there's a real powerful lesson there that I'm really

excited to share, and I hope that I hope the listeners will dig the whole, well, we're

going to be talking about today.

So talking about it, fall color change, and why it happens, and so, you know, basically

what happens is you've got these different, when we're looking at a leaf in the middle

of summertime, what we see is the color green being reflected back into our eyes, but that's

not the only pigment that's in that leaf, right?

There's also some orange pigments, and yellow pigments, and red pigments too, right?

So that color change that we see right now, those pigments were always there.

It's not like, you know, all of a sudden, you know, there was an injection in the leaf

of red color, and instead what happens is this time of year, the plants that lose their

leaves, those plants, no, you know, hey, winter is coming, and the whole reason why they

lose their leaves is because if they maintain those leaves in a, you know, a growing state,

a non-dormant state, they would lose too much moisture, and that would cause the tree

to die.

So the whole reason why trees lose their leaves is so that way they don't lose extra moisture

over the winter time, okay?

So since they're going to have to lose their leaves, when the, the plant's kind of looking

at those pigments, and all the pigments that are there, the pigment that causes the green

is really high in nitrogen, right?

Well, nitrogen is a pretty high commodity in the plant world, right, or in the natural

world.

And so mother nature is looking at, all right, we gotta, we gotta ditch these leaves, but

wait a second, there's something worth a lot of value in those green pigments, and so

the plant basically just reabsorbs all of that nitrogen, right?

It's amazing.

So the plant's reabsorbing that nitrogen, and it's taken it back inside of the, so that

way you could store it for next year, right?

And in the meantime, so what we're seeing is either the yellow pigments or the red pigments

that were always there the whole time.

I really get excited about this because I think, you know, there's a lesson there of like

taking a look at what Mother Nature's doing.

She is not wasting a pinch, she's taken all of that nitrogen and recycling it, she's making

use of it because she knows, hey, this is something that's valuable, and we're not going

to waste that.

I remember when it is so well set, couldn't agree more, and so unique and cool.

And I love seeing these parallels between things in life, and I remember when I was younger

and I read that a tiger stripes are on its skin, you know, you can shave a tiger down,

it's still got stripes.

The colors in these leaves remind me of that a bit, and also using, and maybe it's a bit

of using the terminology pigment and stuff, it doesn't remind me of us as people, too.

We talk about this all the time, no matter how we may look on the outside, we're all the

same on the inside, just a nice reminder of that, I think, too, and very, very cool, by

the way, too.

Because it didn't know, that's going to blow your mind, knowing that, like, wait a minute,

they're always like, oh, they got all those colors in there, it's really cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, something that I think that you were really, I would say, if you don't mind me saying,

so ahead of the game on and everything, and something that is very, they become a common

now, we have known, known, you know, when we get to summer, and not mowing, and some

of those things, and the importance for our pollinators with that, talking about helping

out our bees and some of these things, for me, if it wasn't my mom, it was you, the first

person I talked to about this, and I think a lot of our audience might have gotten, got

into from.

And one other thing that I wanted to get, oh, now another thing I want to get into with

you is something else that I don't know is as common, but I hope will be, and talking

about, and making more of a normalized thing, and the idea of leaving the leaves.

And I'm not saying this just because I have a bad back, that isn't the only reason.

Okay, it's a tiny, like, just a tiny little percent of a reason.

Yeah, it's, I love the phrase of it too, because it's so easy to remember, leave the

leaves, right?

So the idea here is, we're just thinking about how we do our maintenance and our landscapes,

and the traditional wisdom of many, many decades before now is done.

In the fall, we need to make everything super tidy, right?

We want to rake up all the leaves, put them in bags, and either jump, or put them in piles,

either jump in the piles many times, or, you know, bag them up and send them off to

the city compost, or maybe just burn them if we live out in the country.

But it's a real, you know, idea that, you know, it's just absolutely, you know, lock

stuff this time of year, we need to rake up those leaves, and what we're doing now is

just kind of rethinking, why do we want to rake those leaves?

What is the purpose, right?

Are we just doing busy work, you know, is there a real need for this tidiness, and what

we think of as tidiness as being good, right?

Right, right.

So let's just pause for a second and think about what are some of the benefits of leaving

the leaves in place, okay?

Yeah, yeah.

So number one, we could think of that as a natural mulch, you know, especially I'm kind

of thinking about, in particular inside perennial beds.

And if we think about last year, last year, we had a lot of both perennials, so herbaceous

plants that aren't woody, but woody plants too.

A lot of younger trees, not well established trees, or smaller shrubs, that actually suffered

a lot of damage this past winter because there wasn't a nice snow cover, right?

So when we're thinking about these leaves, these leaves are actually a natural mulch layer,

right?

And so in those perennial beds, leaving the leaves in the perennial beds is actually

going to help protect them, especially if we have another winter where we don't have

significant snow cover for long periods of time.

And if we have those really, really cold, cold temperatures too, it's going to be super helpful.

Besides that, though, you know, when we think about just how nature works, we've got,

they call it nutrients cycling, right?

But I mean, that's just basically like composting in place.

As the leaves decompose, they're going to leave a little bit of nutrients that's going

to add to the soil, it's going to feed the plants, it's going to feed the lawn, as well

as perennial beds, trees, all of that type of stuff.

So because that added benefit of getting a little bit of extra nitrogen in that soil,

as well as just any time...

Oh, sorry, I thought you were there, but I just had a thought of that, because we talk

so much about how much people love their lawns.

It feels like, you know, doing that and leaving the leaves can even make a more beautiful

lawn, and it comes summer and everything.

Yeah, you know, I think a lot of times people's immediate thought is, you can't have a single

leaf on the lawn because that's going to harm the lawn when actually, if we really think

about this, kind of zoom out and think about it by adding that added mulch layer, by adding

that additional, you know, those nutrients, that's going to end the organic matter.

We're talking about plant material, right?

Anytime we add organic matter to the soil, it's going to improve the soil health, whether

it's, if you've got clay soils or sandy soils, you know, adding organic matter is always

the answer to improving those soils.

So yeah, you know, if you are somebody that, I kind of think about lawn maintenance as

I choose your own adventure.

Some people choose to have very, very high maintenance lawns, you know, they want a

monoculture of only grass plants that are just absolutely perfect, right?

And then you've got other people like me that are just shooting for green stuff growing,

right?

I love that, yeah.

And, you know, and there's, you know, judgment here, you know, there's a whole spectrum

of what you want, your expectations are out of the lawn.

But if you are hoping for a really high maintenance lawn that I was talking about, you're shooting

for something similar to a golf course, leaving some leaves is actually going to be beneficial

for you.

And very interesting.

And I think, to be honest, what if it's one of those things that gets people to do this

cool?

Yeah.

That's a good reason to do it just, you know, as many others are speaking of other reasons

too.

So one of the reasons that I kind of get excited about is going back to the pollinators.

And again, you know, I know not everybody is terribly excited about the pollinators, right?

People are wondering, yeah, you know, butterflies, sure, it's pretty nice, you know, whatever.

And I'm here to make the argument, if you enjoy food, if you like to eat, you should

be concerned about the pollinator problem, right?

I'm seeing everybody raise their hand.

It's such an important note.

And I don't know that we could ever say it enough.

It's all of our problem, right?

So one of the things that we can do when it comes to the pollinator problem, all of us,

especially homeowners, or even if you've got rentals, if you're a renter, if you've

got landscapes that you're responsible for maintaining, leaving, so here's the thing,

that leaf litter that's in the lawn or it's over in the perennial bed or up over in your

lilac bushes, that leaf litter is going to have some pollinator eggs inside of it, right?

And so by leaving the leaves, we're letting those pollinator eggs over winter, right?

So we're giving that next generation, next year's generation a chance to survive winter,

right?

If we remove all of the leaves inside of our yard and, you know, rake them all up and

bag them up and have them destroyed, that's going to be less of a pollinator population

that's going to be available next year.

Then's the last time you saw a squirrel raking, right?

In the forest, we have a perfect example of this all around us.

The forest does this, that's how they handle this, they just let it be.

And it seems to help the forest quite a bit, I'm not trying to use a reach of an example

or anything, but I do think that that is a bit of an example of what we're talking about

here.

And something to keep in mind, if we're trying to get, you know, people to give this

a chance or give it a shot or something, thinking of those things I think are more than

enough evidence or evidence right in front of you every day of, hey, this is a smart way

of handling this.

Yeah, you know, in the past, we've had this attitude of tidiness as being something good,

right?

But yeah, you're absolutely right.

When we look at how ecosystems actually function and take a look inside the forest, right?

The forest is naturally the leaves fall in the ground, the decompose, we've got all sorts

of organisms that are relying on each other, the web of life.

You remove any little strand of that web, and you'll find parts of it start to collapse.

And that's what we're witnessing in real time right now.

We've got, you know, if anybody's interested, you know, you can take a look online and Wikipedia

and check out the term windshield effect.

And if anybody's been around on the planet for, you know, I'm Gen X, so to give you an

idea of that time period or older, maybe even our older millennials, you'll remember back

in the day of driving down the road, especially I'm picturing, I grew up in Northern Illinois

for a time.

You know, you're driving down the road in the cornfield and the windshield is just completely

smattered with insects, right?

We don't have those windshield problems like we used to.

You got to drive for a while before your windshield needs to be cleaned, right?

It's a really good, that's really good to bring out.

So check out, I definitely, I mean, it's something that, you know, if you can remember back

in the day, you know, that's evidence right in front of us that there are, we're having

a huge, huge decline in the insect population and that is fundamentally going to affect

us in so many ways that we don't, we can't even imagine yet.

Also Gen X also grew up in Northern Illinois, know exactly what you're talking about and

remembered it so vividly as you were describing it.

And then I remembered the last time I was on the highway and I'm, oh, wait a minute,

yeah, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't actually remember the last time I did experience

that or anything.

And I don't think many of us have thought of that and that is such a great comp to bring

up when it comes to this and one of those other examples because there are so many of them

that we're not even thinking of and to your point, there's so much of this that we really

don't know the fallout of just yet, we're, we're going to find out.

And let's hope that we can, so much of this is preventing from finding out too much,

you know, or it being too much, you know, that, that, that, that getting to a point and

no return or something along those lines.

These pollinators are just as important as we are on this planet.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Everybody, every, every humans and sex, everything has a niche to fill.

We all got a role.

We all got a role.

We all got a job to do.

We all got a role.

We all got a role.

We all got a role.

We all got a role.

We all got a role.

If you wanted to touch on some more, there, I know that this, it's another big part of

this.

Well, one thing that you want to keep in mind, so a couple of thoughts, where are we going

to put these leaves?

Some of them you can leave right on the lawn.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second.

But also, you know, one, one of my favorite things to do is I'll take a, a lot of my leaves

and just gently rake them into my perennial beds.

If I've got them inside of my perennial beds, that's going to be a great place to help

again, provide that mulch layer, provide that extra protection for my perennials.

And my, those pollinators can just kind of chill and sleep.

Now, there's another phrase that's starting to become popular and it's, I am drawing

a blank now, darn it.

Okay.

But anyways, basically, it's means move slowly in the spring.

Don't get crazy and get out there in March, you know, the end of March getting out there

cleaning your perennial beds and cleaning up all of those leaves.

You put those leaves there, you know, we're letting the perennials, we're letting the

pollinators sleep.

So we want to just wait until things have actually broken dormancy in the spring to let

the, to clean out those beds.

So kind of thinking about it both in the fall as well as the spring.

Let the, we want to avoid disturbing those pollinators as much as possible or that leaf litter

as much as possible until spring and like really fully spring when things are starting

to wake up.

Hmm.

We're speaking with Janelle.

We're Horticulture Educator, UW Division of Extension, Wood County.

Janelle, we've, we've kind of asked people and talking to people about why to leave them.

But what about where to leave leaves?

How about that?

Yeah.

So I like the idea.

Like I said, I, I love using leaves as a part of a mulch layer around those perennial

beds.

And you know, if you've got some leaves that are kind of around, say, your, maybe not the

most hardy woody shrubs.

So I'm thinking about those endless summer hydrangeas, also known as endless bummer hydrangeas.

Those guys can be really frustrating because the crowns are basically the roots of the,

the shrubs are hardy, but the buds aren't.

So we get a really cold, cold temperatures.

Those buds aren't going to make it.

If you're stuffing that space with a lot of leaves, you got a better chance of actually

protecting them.

So maybe those endless summers won't be a bummer for you next year.

Yeah.

Well, that is a, that might be reason alone for people right there.

That's a good one.

That's good.

So when we're thinking about that lawn and here's the thing that I don't think that it's

a lot for me to convince people to protect their perennial beds and raking into those perennial

beds.

You know, people really, really have a, maybe a misunderstanding in their mind that if

there is any leaf litter on the grass and it snows, then you're going to end up with,

you know, die out of the lawn.

So I want you to think about it this way.

If you've got like maybe 20, 30% of the lawn being covered by leaves, leave them.

That is, that is perfectly fine.

If we're getting around 50%, you can still leave those leaves too.

It's not until we're like at a 70, 75% coverage of the lawn or I'm also thinking like, are

the leaves piling up, right?

If you've got some leaves on the ground, that's okay.

But if you've got leaves that are actually, there's a layer, right?

Well, then you can tell like that's going to turn into almost like plastic smothering

the ground.

You don't want that.

But as long as you've got little tufts of grass popping up here and there in between

the, in between the leaves, those are all going to be fine to leave.

If it's not, okay?

So I will tell you that I live in, I live in the part of Steven's point where the houses

are stacked right on top of each other and my backyard is very, very, very shady.

So for my yard, that's why I, in those areas where it would be packed with leaves and

those spaces, I don't remove the leaves, I just move them so that way, you know, the

leaflets are still there, the pollinator eggs are perfectly fine, they're just stashed

more so that way, that way I don't have as much of a packed level of leaves.

Now I will tell you in the front yard, I don't have quite the concentration of leaves and

so those leaves, it's probably more or somewhere between, say, 40 to 60% leaf cover, those

guys I just leave.

Okay.

So I really well broken down and I could even understand, especially the idea of the

percentages there.

I think a lot of us are doing that in our heads already and that's a really good way

for us to keep this and something good to keep in mind with this because the next part

of this, and you touched on this a little bit also, that when to movers rake and that

eternal question, you know, yeah, yeah, so for here, one of the things I want to keep

in mind, I've had a lot of people that have called me, actually this year hasn't been

as bad, last year was much more significantly worse, but last year was a rough year for

fungal diseases because we had such a really wet, early part of the season and if I remember

right, I think it was a little wet in the last part of the season too.

If you've been struggling with diseases, okay, lilacs in particular have been hit significantly

with septoria and so if you're looking at your lilacs and your lilacs are all brown

and the leaves are falling off or even more, you called me and you talked to me about

your lilacs and I told you the most important thing that you need to do when you have a fungal

disease is pick up all of those leaves, do not let those leaves over winter, right?

Here I'm giving you conflicting messages. I would say in general if the leaves aren't

diseased, if you haven't been struggling with some sort of a disease, leave them in place

and not a big deal, but if we're talking about you have a crab apple in your front yard

and you've been struggling with apple scab the past couple of years, your lilacs have

been looking really, really rough lately and you want to and you're trying to deal with

septoria. In those cases, if you've been dealing with a fungal disease, you do not want

to leave the leaves in place, that fungal disease, what's going to happen is the pathogen

or the disease causing organism is going to overwinter, just like our pollinator eggs, the

pathogens or those fungal spores are going to overwinter on that leaf material. So this

would be the case that I would say, let's clean her up, let's not leave those leaves in place.

So just shy of if you've been dealing with a disease, then go ahead and leave them. And

again, if you are dealing with a situation where you've got a really heavy leaf litter

of raking isn't a good option for you and you've got your lawn, picture my backyard,

lots of super shady, lots, lots of leaves, if raking isn't an option for you and raking

would be more protective for the pollinators, if raking isn't an option for you, I would

say just go ahead and mow them in place. Mow in them in place is still going to provide

that additional organic material that's going to improve your soil health and your lawns

health in turn. Incredible information today, Janelle, you really

brought it. As wrapping up here, I did want to touch on a couple of other little things.

The other uses for leaves and including with this, if you don't mind, the kind of fun

part of it if you will too. Oh sure, sure. So number one, leaves are black gold. I have

friends who this time of year or in the next few, few months, they start scouting their

neighbors and they're, you know, like, hey, what are you going to do with those leaves?

So definitely awesome. Like their truffles or something. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean

definitely super, super helpful for adding your browns to your compost bin. Really invaluable.

I wouldn't, somebody, I'll be honest with you. If somebody tried to take my leaves from

me, I'd be like, no, you go, go find your own trees. That right. It's the second use.

So you can find the other use for their right. You know, you could also use those leaves.

Like I said, for a winter protection, if you hang on to them and I've done this before

too, I hang on to some of my leaves to add as a brown for the following summers compost

bin. But I also use them in my garden. So I'll keep maybe a bag's worth to use as a mulch

in my garden to help with moisture retention as well as suppressing weeds. And then, you

know what, if you have young people in your life, I think, you know, let's bring back

the old jump in the piles and we our generation going back to that. We didn't have bouncy

houses left and right like this one. We had those. When that menu lived for that, it

was worth it. I can't, I cannot imagine how many times I've raked in my life. But

almost every one of them I guarantee you, that was what the carrot at the end of the stick

was for me to get to do that. And then of course, you got to rake them back up and put them

in the bag. But it was so worth it. It was so worth it. Yes, you're 100% right about

this. You talk about something that you can do and it is also because the thing that

I think of that memory and it just happened just now when I haven't thought about this

in a while, but pop right in my head doing that with my dad, my brother, my sister, the

family moment of that while also learning, hey, this is something that we, when we work

together, what we can accomplish. There's so many little lessons in there that you learn

as a kid because kids are brains or sponges. So they're not only going to have fun and

have a good family memory there, but seeing you putting in, you know, caring about the

planet, caring about your, your own community and these things. That goes a long way too.

It's a win-win. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, everyone's first of teachers, the parents,

right? You know, a set in the stage. Yeah. Yeah. So there are so many other reasons

of this. And as we're wrapping up, you know, I would like to let people know that if you

are, you know, interested in this, want to find out more, want to be a part of the support

that's kind of work and what's being done here, how can they do that? You know, here

at Extension, we have a ton of really cool resources. So if you're interested in learning

a little bit more, you can actually read this really wonderful article written by my colleague,

Diane Alpholf. And her article's name is Leave the Leaves. So if you just Google UW-Madison,

Leave the Leaves, you're going to be able to find that. I encourage you to do that. You

know, support our pollinators. Share this information with your neighbors, friends and family.

I think our station and our, our, our people out there, our producers, everybody do a great

job promoting this stuff, getting it out there. Our ratings speak to that. We got nice

ratings over here. But we all know where to mouth, how far that goes. So spread the word

about this one with your friends and family and neighbors. And let's all get on the, on

boat with this one and, and save our backs. Yeah. You know, I think fundamentally it

really comes down to just changing the lens, changing the framework. Instead of, you

know, looking at a, a lawn with some leaves on it and thinking, Oh, that looks dirty.

That doesn't look tidy. Instead look at that and say, Oh, that looks alive. And making

alive be exciting. Well said and well done, Adrenal. Always

fun talking with you. Thanks so much for the time. Thanks for having me. And thank you

for joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought you by

Crocket Sceptic here at WFHR.