I collect all I can and it goes straight in the compost bin, best mown if possible and the grass helps to get it going faster. Don't bother with separate bins for the leaves as for me it's more of a hassle. They breakdown to very little but it's all good stuff.
Got about 2 tons or so of nicely rotted leaves from last year and well on the way for this year too.
Sifting the old stuff to add to bought potting compost for the seedling Primulas etc.
As I posted once before, received wisdom is to leave the ones which fall on the soil to be taken down by worms. Does not happen here, the leaves just stay almost unchanged over winter. I collect them up especially those which sit on top of evergreen plants. The leaves we find are great hiding places for slugs.
I mow it up and put it directly on the soil as a mulch that composts down over the winter and spring. Works great around the cane fruit, over fallow veg garden soil, etc.
I rake our fallen leaves into a sheltered spot next to the compost heap then next year they will be used round the rose bushes, after they have rotted down, which they seem to do quite happily.
On the soil today the leaves are over 4 inches deep. That depth does no good at all, except to provide hiding places for slugs and snails and vine weevils (and puppy dog;s tails?) I have collected up 6 big barrow loads just from the paths and there are still tons hanging on to the trees.
I just don't get enough to gather up, so I just leave them where they fall. But I'm hoping my SIL, who does grounds maintenance for a living, will fill some compost bags for me so I can leave them in a corner to rot down over the next year or so, giving me lovely compost in the future. He forgot last year - so a reminder is needed!
Whatever lands on the grass gets picked up by the mower (I try to do a last high cut after the leaves have finished falling). I clear them from the fronts of the borders, the paths and around small plants. All of that goes in the compost bin - there's not enough to be worth collecting separately.
Leaves that fall on the middle/backs of borders where the plants aren't vulnerable to being swamped by fallen leaves get left to rot/get pulled down by worms in situ. It's never enough to hide emerging bulbs in the spring, or cause any problem to the big hardy kinds of perennials, and it's the natural state of affairs for shrubs to have their own leaves lying on the ground underneath them.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Mainly Ash tree leaves here, but not enough to collect, so left where they fall. They don't seem to last long though. The large magnolia leaves are another matter and break down very slowly, so have to regularly check that small plants and emerging bulb shoots aren't covered and secretly being eaten by slugs. Those get shredded straight into the compost active compost bin.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
We get a lot of leaves fall from the thousands of trees we have around our golf course.
It could be a big problem.
To clear them from the fairways, two of the greens staff perform a "dance" with two tractors with big blower attachments on the back, skillfully driving backwards and forwards from two sides "corralling" them into big heaps in the rough to be collected later by a tractor and trailer. We're always impressed. With eighteen fairways to clear from now until the last of the leaves fall from the trees close to the fairways, it's a never ending job.
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I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...