from leaf to mulch

For my first attempt at par­tic­i­pat­ing in Pam at Digging’s Foliage Follow-up Day I looked under the grape­fruit tree for inspi­ra­tion. As the leaves fall from the tree they go from green to brown to gray before they finally become part of the com­post that enriches the top of the soil. That last stage pro­duces some gor­geous arti­facts, where what’s left is mostly the thicker veins of the leaf. Even as the leaf tis­sue between the veins becomes com­post or is con­sumed by the lit­tle crit­ters liv­ing in the mulch, the struc­ture of the leaf still remains.

Here’s a series of pho­tos of those last rec­og­niz­able traces of formerly-living leaves. Most of the below take advan­tage of the fact that the shadow can seem much more sub­stan­tial as the thing itself. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the last­ing power of a leaf that is about to become com­post? Some­thing about the cycle of life?

February 16 2010 06:00 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • •

18 Responses to “from leaf to mulch”

  1. Loree on 16 Feb 2010 at 10:41 am #

    Wow what a great take on the theme…and your pho­tos are stunning!

  2. Jean on 16 Feb 2010 at 2:50 pm #

    These are beau­ti­ful. Thanks for look­ing so closely and for get­ting us to look closely, too. –Jean

  3. susan morrison (garden-chick) on 16 Feb 2010 at 3:19 pm #

    Very cool take on the idea of foliage. I think win­ter lends itself to this type of intro­spec­tion a lit­tle bet­ter as we’re less likely to be dis­tracted by all the flashy plants mak­ing their debuts in the upcom­ing months.

    Lovely pho­tographs as usual.

  4. ryan on 16 Feb 2010 at 4:58 pm #

    Very cool. One of the shad­ows looks a bit like the grim reaper.

  5. Lola on 16 Feb 2010 at 5:35 pm #

    Great post. I shall look closer next time.

  6. Kelly on 16 Feb 2010 at 9:30 pm #

    Those are lovely! I may have to try tak­ing a few of those pho­tos myself.

  7. Pam/Digging on 16 Feb 2010 at 10:46 pm #

    I like your cre­ative take on foliage, James. There’s beauty even in death and decay. Thanks for join­ing in this month.

  8. Jenny on 17 Feb 2010 at 4:06 am #

    I am always delighted to find a skele­ton leaf in the gar­den. I remem­ber them from when I was a child– there were always so many on our gar­den. Here it is just the odd one but so fas­ci­nat­ing. Thanks for remind­ing us about the cycle of life in the garden.

  9. ricki - sprig to twig on 17 Feb 2010 at 6:00 pm #

    At a recent art fair, some­one had cre­ated haunt­ing col­lages incor­po­rat­ing sim­i­lar leaf skele­tons (haunt­ing for many of the rea­sons you men­tion). And have you seen the Japan­ese lanterns once the papery orange is dessi­cated to reveal the bright berry encased in a del­i­cate trac­ery? I love the train of thought brought on by this post.

  10. Pam on 17 Feb 2010 at 6:33 pm #

    These images are just won­der­ful — isn’t it incred­i­ble, how the process of decay reveals such beauty? One just needs to take the time to look I sup­pose. And the shad­ows — exquisite!

  11. Melody on 17 Feb 2010 at 7:42 pm #

    Inter­est­ing series of shots. I see leaves like that all the time, but I don’t really “see” them, if you know what I mean. I’ll be look­ing for them when I go out tom­mor­row so I can really look at them. Thanks for the pics.

  12. lostlandscape on 17 Feb 2010 at 9:55 pm #

    Loree, thank you. I was going to pho­to­graph some neat foliage plants and then I saw some of these leaves and changed my mind.

    Jean, I love to focus on lit­tle details in the gar­den, and I think many gar­den­ers do too.

    Susan, inter­est­ing that you thought of win­ter, and I can see it now. This one par­tic­u­lar tree sheds con­stantly, but this kind of quiet obser­va­tion really works well for this season.

    Ryan, no more Bergman movies for you!

    Lola, thanks!

    Kelly, have fun mak­ing your own pho­tos work­ing with this idea. It’s neat how shad­ows in pho­tographs take on a pres­ence they don’t seem to have in real life.

    Pam, it’s so nice that you came up with the idea to do this! I had a great time doing it, and I’ll be back again.

    Jenny, I like lit­tle things like these leaves that keep remind­ing you of the big­ger life processes.

    Ricki, those col­lages and lanterns sound beau­ti­ful. Both sound like art­work that cel­e­brates change, instead of try­ing to cre­ate some­thing too perfect.

    Pam, the process is so sim­ple: a leaf decom­poses over time. But they decom­pose in so many dif­fer­ent ways.

    Melody, have a great time dig­ging in the fallen leaves! They won’t all be stun­ning, but I’m sure you’ll end up with a few amaz­ing finds.

  13. tina on 18 Feb 2010 at 5:26 am #

    You are right! The shadow is so much more than the leaf itself. I never would’ve noticed it had you not pointed it out. They are such a big part of the cir­cle of life. A good thing for all of us.

  14. Dirty Girl Gardening on 18 Feb 2010 at 1:29 pm #

    Great post… I love leaf mulch. Such a great source for the compost.

  15. Town Mouse on 19 Feb 2010 at 10:23 am #

    Even as a kid I loved these frag­ile, mag­i­cal leaf skele­tons. What fun to see some photos!

  16. Meredith on 19 Feb 2010 at 4:33 pm #

    Lovely leaf skele­tons. A whis­per of the life that once was seems to remain behind…

  17. Fountain Hills Landscaping on 26 Feb 2010 at 3:11 pm #

    I was think­ing about mak­ing my own mulch. I have to study up on how exactly to make the right bal­ance for my gar­den and cli­mate. Pretty neat pic­tures of those decom­pos­ing leaves. Amaz­ing what tech­nol­ogy can do in the form of pho­tog­ra­phy these days. Cheers~

  18. Wendy on 26 Feb 2010 at 9:06 pm #

    cool. I need to dig a lit­tle deeper and look a lit­tle closer and see what I can find. Once the snow melts that is.

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