When there are several inches of leaves under shrubs, is it necessary to remove or move them aside when applying granular organic fertilizer?

I would rake the leaves out and either compost them or mow over them with a mulching mower and leave them on your lawn.

Curious here...take away the natural mulch the plants have provided themselves and leave bare soil? Or spend money buying mulch that your plants have already provided and you removed? Help me make sense of this, please. Granular fertilizer should fall down and reach the soil relatively easily, as it does through any other mulch.

I'd leave them alone and spread my fertilizer as usual. If the biological activity is healthy, they'll break down and provide more soil food right along with your fertilizer. Seems to serve my plants just fine.
Kathe

I'd go with the suggestion Kathe gave. In the spring, make sure the mulch is not building up on the trunk burying the root flare.

If you have been gardening for several years organically, instead of adding a granular fertilizer, you should be adding more leaves. I try to add 8 to 10 inches of leaves each year to my gardens. So far this year I have added 96 bags of leaves and grass clippings (none from my yard). I will add about 300 bags this year. I don’t worry about them breaking down. By next fall I will have a lot of bare spots and plants that don’t know when to stop growing.

Agreed on leaving all your natural mulches on your soil.
Let me add one codicil to that -
The breakdown, as noted clearly by Malcolm Beck and others, does take away a bit of nitrogen from the soil chemistry so a fertilizer at least once a year is really needed. If the soil activity is very high and healthy it isn't a big problem but it has been observed so just be aware of that issue.

Get Malcolm's newest book and read the section on this issue for more information. Makes sense to me in my own experience. Any extra input here, Howard?

Kathe