Nevermind my question. I should have researched first on this forum to see old discussions on the topic.

I think I'll leave my leaves alone. ; )

Is the corner area where you want the garden? If so, then adding rocks will make it suitable for a shade rock garden, with dry tolerant ferns, heart leaved asters and other plants that like dry, stony soil and shade.

If the corner is your refuse pile, please stop. Leaves should be left on the woodland garden as a mulch; they will break down and enrich the soil. I leave rocks and branches in place as well; rocks provide a surface for moss and lichens and the branches provide a place for mushrooms. Of course, I am fond of natural looking gardens.

Plant shade loving plants like columbine, fern, hosta, coral bells, trillium, jack in the pulpit, heart leaved aster, large leaved aster, woodland phlox, bellwort, virginia bluebells, blue stemmed goldenrod, mace sedge, violets between the rocks and branches. If you don't like the look of leaves, add a thin layer of mulch over the leaves.

Mushrooms will show up on their own and you may find that the birds and squirrels bring in new plants too.

The corner where I was raking everything to was just to get it out of the way and put it somewhere. However, I'm putting it all back now. Thanks for your good advice. : )

It's not always necessary to put it all back, and not always good to keep all the leaf litter either. We just found this out this spring. We put a fence up last summer and never thought of how this would impact our woodlot backyard. Normally there were high winds through our woods and this past winter with the fence we noticed that although we had 1-3 feet of snow our neighbors with no fence had bare soil. Likewise, our leaves never blew around and away either. We ended up with 2-3 feet deep of leaves in some areas of our lot and this was choking out most of our natural wild flowers that bloom this time of year. The dog-toothed violets were just not tall enough to make their way above the deep leaf litter, nor are the trilliums (we have 3 colours) or the blue cohash which was staying white because of no sunlight and some was rotting. Last weekend we went in and removed a TON of leaf litter leaving just a thin carpet to decay for nutritents and the remaining plants are finally starting to bloom. The rest of the leaf litter we threw over the fence into an empty wooded lot and the soil there can have it for nutrients. ;o) I'm afraid if we had of left it we might have lost a great deal of our lovely plants that have just grown there naturally.

Regards,

Barb
S/W Ontario
Zone 6a

Depends on what the leaves are. Maple leaves form solid layers and need to be removed in the spring--plants cannot break through them. If your canopy is almost anything else, you should be fine without removing them.

I rake the leaves in my woodland garden and then put them thru my shredder and put them back in the garden as mulch. This way my perrinials can grow thru it easier and they break down faster and feed my soil. It is kinda time consuming, but it gets me out in the garden in the winter.

Nature Person,

I think step 1 should be going through your woods and identifying every plant, tree and shrub possible. You may have to wait until later, when all the trees, shrubs and vines leaf out.

Step 2 should be getting rid of that which is undesireable to you. In my case, since I garden with native plants, that would be removing invasive non-native plants, trees,shrubs and vines. Buckthorn, Garlic Mustard, Burning Bush, Oriental Bittersweet, Autumn Olive, Russian Olive, etc. I remove poison Ivy, even though it is native, because I react to it. Some people leave it...it is a really good source of food for birds. Same with grapevines..good food, native, but kind of invasive, and they will, over time, pull trees down.

Do a little area at a time! Clear and plant in small segments, or you may go insane, LOL!

Step 3 is where you grab a cold beer, or other beverage, and have a look at what you've accomplished, and imagine what will be! Good luck! April

Put in pahts. Identify trees, shrubs, perennials.