Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

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Trust in nature – and stop raking up your garden leaves (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Some choice quotes from the article:

[S]pent leaves that flutter to the ground aren’t a waste product. They are rich in carbon and play an essential role for the tree and the ecology it supports.

The leaves act as a physical barrier for soil, keeping it and its many microbes insulated, and also for the tree roots, as the wet mats of autumn leaves shelter the fragile top layer from the drying winds.

Many, many things live in these dead leaf layers: caterpillars of moths and butterflies, their chrysalises, beetles, centipedes, springtails, woodlice and spiders … and doesn’t the blackbird know it, rustling through the leaves?

No one loves wet autumn leaves more than earthworms, though. Sensing one of their favourite things, they start to work on incorporating them into the soil. Earthworms line their homes with autumn leaves, using them for bedding and then, because they are good housekeepers, they eat them as they break down.

Leave the leaves be: they are not a mess, a waste or a hindrance – they are life and vital with it.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (18 children)

Usually I mulch mow my leaves. This year I just left them whole. We'll see come spring how much the anti-leaf doomsayers are correct or not. "It can kill grass!" they say. Well, I'm not trying to make my yard look like a golf course in the first place, so maybe let's start there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It definitely can kill grass if you have enough trees and therefore leaves. I still have a few dead spots from the leaves I missed last year. I do basic maintenance and care for my yard and it's thicker and more lush than neighbors who go full tilt. Part of that maintenance is making sure the leaves don't kill the grass. I did one round of mowing the leaves and when I could finally get around to clearing the rest that dropped instead of mowing I blew it all into the storm ditch.

I have a major problem with the idea of bagging it up and sending it somewhere else, but, you do need to get the leaves off of any grass that you want to survive and grow. Maybe you don't care about having grass, that's cool but for the umpteenth time here just so I get it across, leaves can and will kill grass.

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