Anchorage Daily News

The regular reader knows I am a lawn-mowing fool. Show me a lawn, and in my mind I automatically map out ways I would mow it so the yard would look suitable, or more so, for a magazine cover. OK, it's not the first thing I think of, but I usually get there.

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Granted, I consider myself to be a Master Lawn Mower and dream of mowing the fine lawns of America, a project that would include a Krameresque Coffee Table Book and a PBS series.

You become a Master Lawn Mower, in my mind, when you've learned to "lay down a pattern" other than the traditional back-and-forth or Leave It to Beaver style of the 1950s. You know what a pattern is: The characteristic marks left by the mower after a fresh mowing.

Usually it starts with creation of a circle because you are too lazy to move the picnic table or that Adirondack chair. Soon you realize it is a very efficient way to mow a lawn, requiring the fewest overlaps as you mow. Efficiency and an unusual bit of lawn art. The next thing you know, you have discovered how to lay down hearts, triangles, waves and so much more. You are a Master Lawn Mower. You could end up with continuing adjustments of the mower deck to create even more distinct, three-dimensional patterns. My fave is the "Herringbone" (but you will have to buy the coffee table book to learn more).

As it happens, this weekend will be a great time for those who love to mow lawns (and I know there are lots of us out there who do) to go out and lay down a pattern or two. Even those who hate to mow lawns might find it fun and should be out there anyhow. I note that this weekend will be great because the leaves are not only turning yellow fast, but they are beginning to fall. I am sure there will be just the right amount on the ground so that when you do mow, the pattern you lay down will really show.

The idea of mulching leaves and not bagging them is still a difficult one for yardeners to understand. For at least a generation we have been conditioned to think that raking leaves off lawns is an activity that must be completed every fall before the snow flies. We have built in concerns about smothering lawns and causing dead spots.

These concerns, however, are no longer valid now that we have mulching mowers. Yours is a mulching mower if it is gas- or electric-powered. Unless you bought that antique monster I had Jude sell at a garage sale this summer. If you have a reel mower, this is one time to borrow or rent a power mower. Anyhow, if you mulch up the leaves with your mower, say once a week or more often from now until it gets dicey running the mower and it is time to put it away, they won't mat down and smother anything. They will be perfect food for the microbes that will break them down all winter long and add goodies to your soil-food web.

It really saves time and work, mulching instead of raking. This year, in the name of science, I am even going to see if even mulching is necessary or can leaves just be left as they fall. I know it is risky, but can you imagine the time and effort we could save ourselves if we knew we have an adequate enough soil food web to take care of our leaves without even laying down a pattern, as it were? Besides, the soil food web scientist in me not only screams that fall leaves are not mulched in nature but also that worms may bring more organic matter into the soil if leaves or left whole rather than mushed into a gadzillion bits. Stay tuned.

Don't worry about aphids, sawflies, leaf miners. Get a healthy food web going in your lawn and under trees and shrubs and let nature get them under control. Nothing we do with chemicals works anyhow.

Make sure, of course, that you've pulled in hoses and sprinklers and the dog's tennis ball and favorite bone and anything and everything else that will soon be covered with leaves and subject to damage as you lay down your patterns.

Of course, it is hard to predict the weather, and it may be raining (or even snowing!) the entire weekend, but if it isn't, start taking care of your leaves. Have fun and lay down a pattern or two. All you have to do is be creative.

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at www.gardenerjeff.com or by joining the "Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR 700 AM.

Garden calendar

• RECYCLE PLASTIC POTS SATURDAY: ALPAR, Smurfit-Stone and the Alaska Botanical Garden sponsor this year's event at the garden, Tudor and Baxter roads, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Look on the bottom of plastic pots for numbers 2, 5 or 7. These are the only ones that will be accepted. No wires. Walk the gardens when you are finished.

• EXTRA PRODUCE: Plant a row for the hungry and harvest it for the Alaska Food Bank system and Bean's Cafe. Do it now while things are still fresh and edible. Don't waste; share.

• SPRING BULBS: They are in at nurseries and box stores. Plant as many as you can. Then mulch over them with a few inches of grass clippings or straw to provide the right kind of nitrogen to the microbes that will feed the bulbs as they grow.

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