My neighbor passed away recently, and the last thing he sent me was this article, saying:
Nelson,
Just like you said, Leave the Leaves.
Say hi to the baby.
I don't normally share the New York Times, but this one is special to me.
One thing I learned from the article is that leaves are useful to wildlife all year round, there's no time of year where you can destroy or remove them without hurting creatures living in them.
I was talking to my supervisor about the quietness of the snow day -- blissfully without #Snowblowers! I commented on how the same people were the ones with #Lawnmowers and #Leafblowers. My supervisor replied, "But everyone has those. At least where I live."
I replied, "We don't! We have a snow pusher and a couple of shovels, we leave the leaves alone, and when we do mow, it's either using a grass whip or a push-mower. No noise, lots of exercise!"
And yes, I hope to get our yard to the point where the grass whip is all we might need occasionally. I want to redo most of our *lawn* with native grasses and wildflowers.
#SolarPunkSunday #PushMowers #NoisePollution #LeaveTheLeaves
I have a lot of leaves, more than my beds can handle. so I compost some directly in a compost pile. For the rest I enlist some help from the Ladies. They are terribly curious about anything new and find a leaf pile pretty entertaining.
They'll spend all winter shredding these leaves and by spring they'll be fine black mulch. It also makes the run less muddy and that keeps their feet and their roosts a little cleaner in the coop.
4/4
#PNW #leavetheleaves #gardening #autumn #Leaves #chickens
Here in the Pacific Northwest, leaf mulching your perennial beds also helps them by slowing down the velocity of rain hitting the soil, so that water soaks in slowly. This helps prevent erosion and nutrient loss in the soil.
We have a lot of half-hardy plants here, that benefit from protection from the occasional hard freeze. act as a blanket for the plant roots, protecting them from freezing too hard, specially when there's no snow.
3/4
#PNW #leavetheleaves #gardening #autumn #Leaves
"Leaving the leaves" means leaving them on your property, especially if the alternative is a landfill. I don't have an actual lawn, but I do have wide grassy pathways between garden beds. Mostly I just use them as mulch in the perennial beds.
These leaves have insect eggs and pupae in them. Most insects are beneficial for your garden. And those are essential food for birds. Especially for the baby birds that will arrive in Spring.
2/4
It's leaf raking season (at least here in the #PNW) and there's been a big campaign by the National Wildlife Federation to #leavetheleaves . Recently one of my favorite podcasts, In Defense of Plants, did an interview with NWF naturalist David Mizejewski to explain what that means.
https://www.indefenseofplants.com/podcast/2025/10/21/ep-549-advocating-for-fallen-leaves
The biggest misconception is that this means leaving leaves on your lawn. No, it doesn't. Leaf buildup on your turf grass will damage it.
1/4
#gardening #autumn #Leaves
George Smiley
Nelson
George ๐ฆ๐ฒ ๐ฅพ โ๏ธ๐ ๐
DoomsdaysCW
Eugene Parnell