Both are right, I'm afraid - a leaf litter layer will act as a mulch, and will harbour good and bad organisms. But you will have to clear them in the Spring anyway, so you haven't got flowerbeds covered in dead and rotting leaves. Why not collect them up and make leafmould - see Spritzhenry's "Black Gold" blog for info on how to do it.

oh thanks bamboo, i'll check it out now.

Bamboo we never remove the leaves from our flower beds and the plants just grow up through them,the fact that they are dead and rotting is good. Himself does collect all the leaves he can from paths and the surrounding area for leaf mould.

I guess it depends what kind of garden you have, Moongrower - not sure how big Tilly's garden is, or what style, but for the average sized garden, collecting the leaves is better - unless you have a wilder, untended style. Am I right in thinking you have a pretty big garden/s?

UNTENDED!!!!!! Who dares to say that it is untended? It takes a lot of effort to get it looking like it does.
Grrrrrr ;-)

Okay, sorry, I should have said more natural, bulbaholic! My point is that there's a big difference between an acre of garden and 3 borders and a couple of beds - my inlaws had the former, and leaves were left where they fell - except in the two large beds nearest the terrace, which were cleared, just because it looks tidier, more manicured, shall we say.

Wish we had an acre - sigh. I think it is just different attitudes to gardening and growing we believe in a more natural approach. The formal border is an anathema to us.

I have the same problem, Tilly. I always clear up all the leaves...well, as many as possible as I do get fed up with it every winter. I make as much leaf mould as possible BUT I do hate all the sweeping/collecting of same! Having just had the same discussion with my husband, I decided that I would leave some of them on the beds this year to see what happens! I must admit though that the strong winds this afternoon have brought a shower of them down....and I cannot stand to see them on the lawn so no doubt I'll be out there again tomorrow!

Incidentally, do people always clear them from the lawn...or am I just mad? LOL.

Nay problem, Bamboo.
We like to let the leaves stay on the beds because there are a lot of woodland plants and bulbs in there which benefit from the mulch and we leave the leaves there to rot down. Our main problem is the the wind keeps shifting and redistributing the leaves from one end to the other. Blackbirds don't help, either.
MG and myself have just come back from the village car park after collecting several sacks of leaves for the leaf mould bins. There are still plenty more waiting to come down so we shouldn't be short this year.

I have limited space to make leaf mould, unfortunately, lucky you to have bins for it.
Izzy, you must not leave the leaves on the grass, well, not unless you want to risk bald patches by Spring. I always shift those with the hover mower - used in the right manner, it blows the leaves onto the borders as you cut the grass, lol!

We used to have over 3 acres of woodland garden so I used to shift literally TONS of fallen leaves every year - and that was just on the paths, grass (I hesitate to call it "lawn"), the car park and where drifts collected in corners. A thinnish layer of leaves on beds won't matter and worms will deal with them. Rake up and carry away deeper drifts to make leaf mould. We used to use a leaf blower to push them into piles for easier collection, or onto areas under trees where they could rot down naturally.

I 'love' going and gathering up leaves for leaf mould... one of the positives of autumn. Today was so beautiful here sunshine blue sky and I took a visiting friend for a walk at Randolph's Leap where she almost took a header into the river Findhorn!

According to my TV book, next Friday's Gardeners' World...

BBC 2 ... 8.30 pm...

"Toby Buckland uses leaves to make a nutritious compost..."

We don't have actual 'bins' Bamboo. We used to use woven sacks which allow air and water into the leaves and had the added benefit of being moveable. recently we have aquired some of those bulk bags that builders get sand delivered in and these fit into a small space.

I find small slugs lurking under leaves so I do tidy them up if I can. I also hate seeing the lawn covered with them, so I was out clearing some this afternoon. It's a bit futile, really, as the poplars have loads more to fall yet. However, I 'do' make leafmould! :-)))

Grief, life is too short to go round clearing the leaves off soil. I don't always get round to clearing the paths either. Naughty.
Might be interested to know that in our Damson Wood which I have just finished de-ivying the 'soil' is a good mixture of broken glass and leaf mould on top of brick rubble. The snowdrops do not seem to mind.

well that question certainly got you all talking :)

like a lot of you i hate the untidyness of the garden when the leaves have fallen. we were out last weekend, and again today and there are still loads of leaves yet to fall. we have taken as much as we can from the lawn and paths, but the borders are a little more tricky because of lack of space between plants to actually find room to balance a foot while collecting them. i think on balance though i will try to move what i can.

thank you to you all for your replies.

i leave some on woodland bed but move from flower beds and decking