Have you ever felt like winter has left your place a mess and you don't know what to do with all of the sticks and leaves?
The permaculture thing to do would probably be to let the sticks and leaves stay where they fell and fertilize the soil. While I would agree that this is a good idea, it can be a little bit unsightly in the front yard gardens. Then there is the problem of palm trees and them leaving their fallen branches on top of other plants.
These extra branches and leaves do have a purpose in the permaculture garden. Believe it or not, fallen leaves can be fed to livestock. My rabbits eat sycamore leaves and palm leaves, but neither are their favorite. Any amount they can mulch for me is appreciated, and the uneaten leaves are put onto the garden pathways as a mulch layer. Sometimes I also put fallen leaves and rabbit manure around new plantings.
Large branches and sticks are a whole nother problem. They take years to break down, even here in the South. So I have found a solution, and that is to cut all branches to the desired widths of the paths, and then to stack similar width sticks horizontally to create a path. This is imperfect at times, because the branches often roll, and they also can make a person trip. But I am confident that digging in the logs a little bit will prevent this problem.
