All the Fallen Leaves Will Find Their Branches Again
Updated September 2021
You shouldn't feel obligated to get rid of every last fallen leafage in your m this fall. Leave the leaves — they offering a lot of benefits for wildlife and your garden. Read on to discover out why and for tips on how to minimize the time yous spend raking this autumn and maximize the benefit to wild fauna and the greater environs that fallen leaves offer.
Leave the Leaves for Wildlife
A leafage layer several inches deep is a natural thing in whatever expanse where trees and shrubs naturally grow, whether that'southward the local woodlands or your ain grand or garden. The leaf layer is its ain ecosystem!Many wildlife species use the leaf layer as their primary habitat including salamanders, chipmunks, wood frogs, box turtles, toads, shrews, earthworms, millipedes, and thousands of insects species.
Many butterfly and moth species overwinter in the foliage layer, including luna moths, bang-up spangled fritillaries, woolly bear caterpillars (which become Isabella tiger moths), and crimson-banded hairstreaks. Some species overwinter as eggs, some as pupae, and some equally adults. In the case of moths, 94 percent of species rely on the leaf layer to complete their lifecycle. If you rake up and throw away all of your leaves this fall, you'll be getting rid of important habitat for these cute and beneficial insects, many of which are pollinators.
Many bird species forage in the foliage layer searching for insects and other invertebrates to eat, including wood thrushes, towhees, robins, sparrows, mutual yellowthroats, bobwhites, and wild turkeys. The vast majority of our backyard birds — some 96 percent — rely on those butterfly and moth caterpillars as the primary food source for their babies during the nesting season. If y'all remove all of your fallen leaves, there will be fewer of these insects in and effectually your yard and fewer birds too. Some birds, such as ovenbirds, as well nest in the leaf layer on the ground rather than in the branches.
Even some bat species overwinter in the leafage layer and can't survive astringent cold temperatures without it.
Leaves are Free Mulch and Fertilizer
From a gardening perspective, fallen leaves offering a double benefit. Leaves course a natural mulch that helps suppress weeds and at the same fourth dimension fertilize the soil as they interruption downward. Why spend money on mulch and fertilizer when you have a free source in the form of fallen leaves? Simply let leaves lie where they fall or move them into your garden beds to protect your plants' roots, suppress weeds, preserve soil moisture and eventually break down and return nutrients to the soil.
If you're worried about leaves blowing out of your garden beds, you can shred them into a effectively textured mulch by putting them in a big trash tin can and using hedge clippers to chop them downward into smaller pieces less likely to blow away.
If you decide to become rid of your leaves, don't throw them in the trash. They end up in the landfill where they suspension down and produce methane, a significant greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Instead, compost leaves at home or drop them off at a municipal recycling center so they tin be turned into compost that yous and other members of your community can employ in the bound. Some communities fifty-fifty offering curbside pick up of leaves specifically for municipal composting operations.
Composting or shredding will likely eliminate many of the insects living in the leaves as you shred them, only at least you'll be recycling the leaves back into your soil.
Avoid Lawns, Mowers and Blowers
Yes, a thick layer of fallen leavesvolition smother backyard. The best fashion to solve this trouble is to reduce the size of your lawn, which is an ecological expressionless-zone that supports well-nigh no living things and requires large amounts of polluting pesticides and fertilizers and wasteful amounts of water to stay green. Even improve, completely catechumen your lawn into beautiful natural plantings.
If you lot must have a tidy expect in your yard or maintain a backyard to comply with Home Owners Clan or municipal rules, you lot can motility leaves off the lawn but yet use them as mulch in your planting beds. You can as well use a mulching mower to chop leaves on your lawn into tiny bits that won't smother the lawn and also return nutrients to the soil.
Avoid gasoline-powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers if at all possible. They are enormous producers of air pollution, impacting human health and contributing to climate change. They also produce tremendous amounts of noise pollution. Electric mowers and blowers produce less pollution than gasoline-powered ones and are amend options, though not pollution-free. Use a manual push mower to cutting your lawn, which doesn't create air or noise pollution similar gasoline-powered mowers do. When it comes to moving leaves, but use a rake. You lot'll exist able to hear the chirping of birds and other natural sounds while you're working, plus you'll get some skilful exercise! The best option of all is to create a mural where you don't have to mow, accident or rake at all but can allow the natural wheel of leafage-autumn to happen.
Remember, the less time you accept to spend doing the dorsum-breaking work of bravado, mowing, or raking your leaves, the more than fourth dimension you have to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather outside and the wildlife visiting your garden!
Fall is a fantastic fourth dimension to make your yard more wildlife-friendly by leaving your fallen leaves on your property and by planting native plants. Our Native Found Collections are curated to support wild native bee species, collywobbles and moths, and the birds that feed on them right in your ain yard or garden.
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Source: https://blog.nwf.org/2014/11/what-to-do-with-fallen-leaves/
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