No matter how big or small your gardening endeavour is, you’ll probably end up with some yard debris. Here are some choices for clearing out your garden and utilising the materials you find there.
You may save money, time, and energy in your garden by recycling and reusing materials. However, there are instances when this isn’t an option, and alternative methods of disposing of garden trash that are as responsible and sustainable as possible must be found.
Green trash is a byproduct of standard garden maintenance practices, including mowing lawns and pruning herbaceous plants. Tasks like tearing up an old conifer hedge or tearing up a patio might result in a lot of trash all at once. Estimate the volume and composition of garden trash when making plans. It’s also possible that you’ll need to figure out a place to stockpile trash temporarily.
What Exactly Is Garden Waste?
The term “yard waste” is used to describe the organic waste produced when tending to outside areas such as lawns, gardens, and other forms of landscaping. These organic elements can quickly accumulate. Therefore, proper management is crucial for maintaining the cleanliness and health of our outdoor areas.
Variety Of Garden Waste
To efficiently and sustainably manage yard trash, it is necessary first to understand the various forms it might take. In addition, initiatives like free tree removal for elders can play an essential part in helping with more significant yard waste concerns for specialised demographics like seniors. However, the following is a reality that must be faced:
Grass Clippings
They represent the bulk of what gardeners throw away after cutting the grass.
Leaves
Fall is a prevalent time for trees and shrubs to lose their leaves.
Twigs And Branches
They are a common byproduct of tree and shrub maintenance, storm damage, and normal shedding.
Large Branches And Tree Trunks
These occur after a tree is cut down or undergoes extensive pruning.
Floral Debris
Expired blooms and flowering shrub trimmings fall into this category.
Weeds
These are the weeds that sprout up beside your tomatoes.
Diseased Plants
These are examples of plants that insects or bacteria have damaged.
Why Not Throw Yard Waste In The Trash?
Similar to food leftovers, yard waste is organic waste that has no place in a dump or incinerator. Decomposing yard waste at a landfill causes methane to be released into the air. Methane, a glasshouse gas, traps heat 25 times better than carbon dioxide and contributes to climate change.
Energy can be generated from some landfills and incinerators, but organic yard waste has far more valuable uses than turning it into hazardous gas.
What You Can Do With Your Garden’s Waste
Create Mulch From Garden Waste
You may make mulch from yard garbage with a wood chipper or tree removal service. We borrowed a wood chipper from a friend, but after five years of disuse, there was too much debris to chip by hand. If we had been more consistent in applying mulch, we could have completed this task on our own.
If you want to make your mulch but need a wood chipper, see if you can borrow one from a friend or neighbour. You might also ask someone to help you out for free by volunteering their time through one of the many online “Buy Nothing” communities where people trade services and expertise.
Mulch improves soil health and aesthetics by concealing bare soil in garden beds. Bare soil is more prone to erosion, contains less life, and supports a lower diversity of organisms. Mulch your garden and other outdoor areas using discarded brush and branches. Buying mulch and paying for delivery adds up quickly, so making your out-of-yard trash is a cheaper landscaping choice.
Get Started With Your Composting At Home
This is a simple method for producing beneficial compost from yard scraps. Use a HOTBIN or a ‘Dalek’ bin made of recycled plastic when the room is at a premium. Check out our composting manual if you want to learn more.
Recycle Your Garden Waste
Because it takes such a long time for yard debris like branches and stems with thick layers to break down, some people are hesitant to put it in a compost pile. Woody debris like sticks and branches indeed takes a very long time to decay. They will need more time to decompose in a heated compost pile if you only plan to use it for a couple of weeks or months.
Yard trash that is difficult to dispose of in other ways, such as leaving it in a homemade container made of wooden pallets for a year or longer, is an excellent addition to a compost pile that requires little attention and upkeep. Put together a “low and slow” compost pile using old wooden pallets and other salvaged materials if you have room.
Spend a year or more doing almost nothing as your yard waste decomposes into beautiful garden riches. You can speed up the decomposition process by turning or aerating your “low and slow” compost heap for yard waste a few times a year, but this isn’t required.
Use The Fallen Leaves To Your Advantage
The leaves that trees and shrubs lose each autumn can be used to make soil improver, mulch, and potting compost (also known as leafmould).
Gather autumn leaves from your lawn and pathways and store them in a jute leaf sack, compost bin, or old trash bag for around two years, and you’ll have a bag of leaf mould, sometimes known as “black gold.” If you don’t have room for bagged leaves, you can always give them to a neighbouring gardener who could use them.
Make Wood-Chip Mulch From Fallen Trees And Trimmed Branches
Many tree service providers have portable chippers and will gladly leave the wood chips for you to use. You can also rent woodchippers if you need one.
Wood chips can mulch established plants or cover informal walkways. When used as mulch, newly chipped wood does not diminish soil nitrogen levels, as is commonly believed. Check out our helpful e-guide on mulching with wood scraps for additional details.
Fill In Raised Garden Beds And Construct Planting Mounds With Brush And Branches
Raised garden beds and mounds for planting pumpkins, squash, and melons benefit significantly from the addition of leaves, brush, branches, and other yard trash for bulk. Put the yard debris in the bottom of the bed and finish it up with soil and compost.
The limbs and brush will eventually decompose, adding nutrients to the soil. It is more cost-effective to use these large objects as the basis for garden beds because less soil and compost are required.
Make Use Of A Matchstick Mulch
Late winter/early spring is the best time to mulch, which is also the best time to cut back ornamental grasses and herbaceous perennials. By doing both at once, you can avoid having to haul away your garden waste. Cut the spent stalks of grasses and herbaceous perennials into matchstick-sized pieces with hand shears or a hedge trimmer, and then scatter them evenly around the plants as mulch.
Discover Log’s Value
When cut into manageable lengths, logs can be utilised to make benches, Verticillium wilt, honey fungus, and phytophthora root rot spread across trees. ticillium wilt can spread from tree to tree. Therefore, throwing out any wood that comes in contact with these diseases is better. Please refer to our Disposal of Infectious Waste guide for more information.
Make Grass Clipping Mulch
By utilising a lawn mower that mulches the grass clippings, you can avoid having to collect them. These mowing machines, called rotary mowers, slice the grass clippings so tiny that they may be spread directly back onto the turf, where they can assist the grass in retaining moisture and returning some nutrients to the soil. When maintained with consistent mowing, they perform admirably.
It’s debatable whether or not you need to gather clippings that are smaller than a centimetre in length while using a conventional mower. In dry weather, you should ditch the mower’s collection box in favour of the “let ’em fly” philosophy. Grass clippings can be used as a substitute for mulch around already-established plants.
Decompose Yard Waste By Burning It
Since burning yard waste releases carbon from the organic stuff, there may be better options. It could be better, but it beats the option of dumping yard debris in the garbage. Compostable wood ash is produced when yard waste is burned at home, and the process eliminates emissions from yard waste transportation.
If you burn only compostable things, the ash from your yard waste burn can be added to your compost pile. The alkaline content of ash is relatively high. Ash is an excellent addition to an acidic compost pile. If the pH of your compost pile is already neutral, adding too much ash at once could throw it off.
You should also be careful about local fire management best practices if you intend to burn yard garbage, as outlined by your municipality. It might not make sense to burn yard debris in a dry climate where wildfires are common.
Provide Your Neighbour Or Friend With Your Yard Waste
Consider whether a neighbour or friend could use it if you have yard waste and no plans for it. Like our next-door neighbour, they might find some use for the wood. They could shred it and use the resulting mulch to top up their own raised beds or plant plots. Consider giving it away depending on the value of what you have to offer.
Disposal Methods For Yard Waste
Arrange A Regular Council Collection
Many city governments offer curbside pickup of compostable garden waste. A yard garbage bin may have an up-front cost and subsequent annual collection fees. Large-scale composting facilities process the collections, and the resulting material is put to use in farming and gardening.
Put Up Some Flyers Around The Town
Things you wish to let go of may be just what a fellow gardener is looking for. Local social media networks or organisations like Freecycle often post ads for free topsoil, logs, and concrete stones for collection.
Explore The Extreme Edge
Green garbage is accepted in particular bins at local recycling centres. Large-scale composting plants will receive the garbage for processing.
Find A Skip Service To Use
If you anticipate generating a large quantity of trash in a relatively short amount of time, this is a practical choice. When clearing out a garden, it may be worthwhile to hire a professional rubbish removal service or rent a skip and do the job yourself.
Take Care Of Your Yard Waste In An Eco-Friendly Way
Sustainable landscaping has evolved as an essential practice in today’s eco-conscious society to balance environmental conservation with the desire for aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments. To get there, we need to get the most out of everything in the landscape, even the garbage. Learning effective waste management is a great way to get started.
Keeping outdoor areas clean, healthy, and sustainable requires diligent yard waste management. A greener and more environmentally friendly landscape is something we can all benefit from by adopting these habits.
You now have some fantastic knowledge on how to deal with yard waste, including composting and mulching. You may now make use of your yard waste, leaves, and other organic materials in your garden. You may get rid of that dead tree limb or that pile of sod in a way that is good for the environment and your plants. Please don’t throw away your yard trimmings when you may reuse them in landscaping.
Conclusion
Everyday yard upkeep tasks, such as mowing lawns and pruning plants, produce waste. Keeping outdoor spaces clean and healthy requires careful management. Grass clippings, leaves, small twigs and branches, huge limbs and tree trunks, flower debris, weeds, and damaged plants are all yard waste. It’s not a good idea to throw yard waste in the garbage since it breaks down into methane, a glasshouse gas contributing to global warming. There are better alternatives to burning yard waste as gas than collecting it.
Mulching yard debris, composting at home, recycling yard debris, and repurposing leaf litter are all viable options for dealing with garden garbage. A HOTBIN or a ‘Dalek’ bin, constructed of recycled plastic, are two options for home composting. Using old wooden pallets and other salvaged items, you may create a “low and slow” compost pile to recycle yard trash. Soil amendment, mulch, and potting compost can all be made from leaves. If you collect leaves from your yard and walkways in the fall and store them in a jute leaf sack, compost bin, or old garbage bag, you’ll eventually have a bag of leaf mould called “black gold.” Bagged leaves can be donated to a neighbouring gardener if you don’t have enough storage space for them. You can keep your outdoor areas clean and healthy without spending a fortune by recycling and composting your green waste.
Using a variety of strategies for dealing with yard debris will help you keep your landscaping greener and less of a burden on the environment. Wood-chip mulch, made from trimmed branches and dead trees, is one such approach that does not deplete soil nitrogen. Brush and branches are another alternative, as they may be used to fill raised garden beds and eventually disintegrate, enriching the soil. In the late winter/early spring, you can use matchsticks as mulch for your plants. Benches fashioned from logs are naturally resistant to honey fungus, phytophthora root rot, and Verticillium wilt. Mulch can be made from grass clippings by employing rotary mowers, which shred the grass into tiny pieces about the size of a matchstick.
Instead of throwing it away in the trash, yard waste can be burned to release carbon from organic compounds. Depending on the local fire management standards, you may add compostable wood ash to your compost pile with caution. If you have yard waste and nowhere to put it, consider giving it to friends and neighbours who could put it to use better. Regular council pickup, distributing flyers, venturing to the city’s fringe, and hiring a skip service are all viable options for getting rid of yard garbage. Adopting these practices will help you reduce yard trash while enjoying a clean, healthy, and sustainable outdoor space. You can create a more environmentally friendly and long-lasting landscape by adding these practices to your regular landscaping routine.
Content Summary
- Debris from the yard is an inevitable part of gardening, but it may be controlled.
- Time, money, and effort are all saved when gardening items are recycled and reused.
- Yard garbage includes grass clippings, plant trimmings, and garden debris.
- The proper handling of yard trash requires an in-depth familiarity with its various forms.
- The majority of yard debris is comprised of grass cuttings.
- In the fall, there is a lot of leaf litter to deal with.
- Branches and twigs are a byproduct of tree and shrub upkeep.
- When trees are cut down or pruned extensively, large branches and trunks are left behind.
- Dead flowers and bushes are examples of what is known as “floral debris.”
- Yard garbage typically consists of weeds.
- Pests and bacteria or insects that cause plant diseases also play a role.
- Due to environmental considerations, yard waste should not be put away with regular trash.
- Decomposing yard waste in landfills is a significant source of methane gas.
- Mulch production is a superior use for yard trash.
- Garden beds with mulch have healthier soil and look better, too.
- Home composting is an excellent option for getting rid of yard trash.
- It’s environmentally responsible to recycle yard debris.
- Branches and other woody debris can be composted.
- The decay of leaves can be used to create a substance known as “black gold.”
- Branches can be chipped into wood chips and used as mulch.
- Raised garden beds can be filled with brush and branches.
- Trimmed perennials and grasses make excellent matchstick mulch.
- Be wary of the spread of disease while reusing logs for any reason.
- Grass trimmings can be recycled as mulch for the grass.
- Yard waste can be burned, but only if done so carefully.
- It’s essential to obey the rules of your community while burning yard debris.
- It’s helpful to find people to share yard waste with.
- There are a variety of options for getting rid of yard garbage.
- Yard garbage can be dropped off at council recycling centres.
- Use flyers and word of mouth to locate a home for your yard garbage.
- When you have a lot of trash, it’s best to hire a skip service or another junk removal company.
- Maintaining a sustainable landscape necessitates considerate trash disposal.
- A cleaner, greener world is a direct result of effective yard waste management.
- Mulching and composting are two efficient ways to deal with yard trash.
- It is possible to repurpose both sod and tree limbs once they have died.
- If you have a garden, you shouldn’t throw away yard clippings.
- A more eco-friendly yard is one result of responsible yard waste management practices.
- These practices provide a more sanitary, healthy, and long-lasting outdoor setting.
- You are now equipped with the knowledge necessary to compost and mulch yard trash.
- Don’t throw away your yard waste; use it to improve your garden while helping the environment.
FAQs About Garden Waste
Is It Safe To Use Treated Or Painted Wood As Garden Mulch?
Treated or painted wood may contain chemicals harmful to your garden. Use only untreated, natural wood for mulch.
How Can I Responsibly Dispose Of Invasive Weeds From My Garden?
To prevent the spread of invasive weeds, place them in a designated compost bin or bag them for disposal at a local green waste facility.
Can I Donate Garden Waste To Local Farms Or Community Gardens?
Some farms or community gardens may accept clean garden waste for composting. Check with local organisations to see if they have such programs.
What Should I Do With Garden Waste That Can’t Be Composted Or Mulched?
Non-compostable garden waste should be taken to a local waste facility or landfill designated for green waste disposal.
Are There Any Creative Or Alternative Uses For Garden Waste?
Yes, you can repurpose garden waste for projects like making garden art, crafting natural dyes or creating insect habitats by stacking pruned branches and twigs.
