Oak leaves for leaf mould?

[di]

I'm aware that oak leaves can take longer to rot down than some other leaves,but I was told the other day that I shouldn't add them to my leaf mould bin as they can actually disease the rest.
Anyone know if this is true?

[HeyWayne]

No idea, but if it does I'm buggered. 95% of the leaves that fall in my garden are from the oak we have.

[Flummery]

Never heard that one. They are full of tannin - but so's tea! They might make the compost a touch acid but that's unlikely to be a huge problem to most people.

[di]

Thankyou!!!(& sorry Wayne for the worry,but you can stop now!)
The friend that told me is a non gardener & she was so certain/apparently knowledgable about it...made me feel like it was one of those things that everyone knew!!

[Flummery]

That's the secret of being a guru - say it like you know it's true. People will believe it!

[Oleander]

When we moved into our house, about 18 months ago, the garden was a neglected overgrown jungle so we got a professional garender in to cut everything back. We didn't want to do it ourselves, in case we cut the wrong bits and killed stuff by mistake.

Anyway, there was several years worth of leaves from evergreen oaks on the ground, and the gardener told us that it makes the best leaf mould! He also said it took ages to rot down, but it was worth the wait.

Hope that helps!

[di]

Cheers!!!...not sure the kidies will thankyou though...there's a nice big pile of them(already semi_rotted)in the school bike sheds!!!...may have to take a large carrier with me when I got get them this arvo!!!Embarrassing mum??..Me???

[Alice]

I always added the oak leaves to the leaf mould and never had a problem. The only ones I wouldn't recommed is beech as they take years to break down.

[Jardiniere]

and NEVER use walnut leaves.......

[Snadger]

I always thought oak and beech were the BEST leaves to use!

[sewer rat]

Both the walled garden I have taken over and the estate garden that i work on part time have huge - and I mean huge - piles of leaf mould at various stages of rotting down - they both include lots of oak and beech - but I suppose that they also have that much that by the time it is used it is at least two if not three years old.
I'm not aware of any disease problems linked directly to the inclusion of oak leaves in your leaf mould pile.

[Flummery]

and NEVER use walnut leaves.......

... or husks. If you look at a walnut tree planted in grass - our nearest city has a number on verges - nothing grows within dropping distance of the trunk. No-one collects the nuts (except us! - I don't think anyone else knows what they are!) so the leaves and husks decompose on the ground and poison everything - even grass. So most definitely a no-no in the compost heap!

[FoxHillGardener]

My leaf mould is 95% oak too and works fine. I used one of may daleks last year, filled with them and it's already rotted down enough to use. I've built a chicken wire cage this year to hold much more, let's see if it works as quickly as the dalek

[TonyF]

We only use oak leaves - one of the benefits of owning a small oak wood is that we have enough leaves/mulch as we ever need. Especially as we're surrounded by oak woods also.

I've just abandoned the chicken wire composter in favour of a dalek - but one of the big boxy ones, because it's more efficient, I've tried a test in a smaller dalek against outside/chicken wire against in black bags and the dalek won easily.

And have been digging it into my beds for the past 3 years with no adverse effects.

Apart from walnuts, laurel is also a piggin' nightmare to get to break down!

[Flummery]

I think that's because the daleks heat up better. Wish we had more oak leaves here.