It can be a heated debate — rake the leaves or not? For some, having a leaf-free yard in the fall is an aesthetic goal, while others like the natural look.

As you're tackling several end-of-season garden chores, some recent research might sway you. It shows several benefits to leaving fallen leaves on your lawn and garden over the winter.

When you don't rake or leaf-blow in the fall, this University of Maryland research shows how that affects the soil and the biological life in your yard, lawn and garden in a positive way.

To test the no-rake hypothesis, researchers chose several lawns and placed emergent traps over areas where one part of the lawn was raked, and the other part of the lawn was left covered with autumn leaves. They left them there and tested in the spring.

In the area

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