I may be a bit confused, but isn’t the “autumn colour spectacle” a bit later, this year? 

We’ve had a crappy, wet spring here in Christchurch and the growing season started very slowly. Summer was unspectacular – all over the place with temperatures; but slowly, in autumn is started to get nice and warm for periods of time. 

So… are we a bit later with coloured leaves? 

Autumn leaf-drop is not much governed by the weather we had in the past, nor by the weather we are going to get later in autumn or winter (plants are not fortune tellers, they can’t predict the future). 

The factor that has the biggest influence on autumn leaf-drop is day length – that that is a very constant factor on our calendar. 

Autumn colours are all about “pigment strip-tease”: 

The Trees grab all the soluble nutrients out of the leaves before dumping the carbon skeletons on the lawn, the garden, the roof, the road! 

Those yellows, oranges, reds and purples each indicate that many nutrient elements have been taken out, leaving the leaves with a serious sign of “deficiency”; The nutrients are stored in the wood and re-used next spring season for the new leaves. 

Here’s how to take advantage of the trees shedding their leaf carbon. 

• Gather all those leaves and compress them in an old wheelie bin till it’s full; compress the leaves as much as you can (using your own weight). 
• Then empty the compressed “loaf” of leaves in the back of the garden; If you’re careful, you can literally “slide” the loaf out of the bin and position it right where you want it. 
•  Leave it for a year or so; The whole lot will slowly dry out and skeletonise. The leaves’ carbon will stay in neat little layers. 
• It will automatically turn into the very best leaf mulch in the world; a seed/weed-free carbon-rich compost that will suppress weeds and add organic matter as well as carbon to the soil profile.