I think you already know all this, but I like to restate it, because I look around my own neighborhood, which is full of very progressive people, and I still see many piles of leaves moved out to the terrace for pickup by the city's bulky collection vehicles.
Leaf pickup continues, but the city does also encourage leaving the leaves, which is especially important here because of the lakes (we're situated on an isthmus between lakes):
When you pile your leaves at the curb for City collection each fall, those leaf piles are exposed to rain which seeps through the piles, making a rich nutrient tea that flows along the curb into storm drains and then to the lakes. Those nutrients are a significant contributor to the algae that turns our lakes into a green smelly mess in the summer.
You'd think the local progressives would be up to speed on this environmental issue, but no. Many of them are still living in the 20th Century:
The 20th Century attitude towards leaves was that once they fell they created lawn litter and had to be removed. It’s a new day, and time for some new thinking. It is time to view leaves as an asset....
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If you are going to do that, don't have a lawn, keep it natural. I was in the mowing equipment business for thirty years and when I built a house, I wanted a house in a hole in the woods with nothing but natural around it. I never wanted to use a mower. LOL. I had to have a small area due to the septic tank run, but I bagged most of the leaves & mulched the grass. a mix of carbon & nitrogen from leaves & grass & a high cut is healthy for lawns.
That's the end of my Ted talk
With unkept lawns your neighborhood will look unkept…My house however sits within a lowcountry forest- pines, poplar, hickory, those romantic oaks dripping with Spanish moss. I make my own ground cover while my manicured neighbors but pine straw by the bale. I do have patch of lawn by the road because the community commands it. I’ve campaigned to get rid of it. No success…
Just put the mulching kit on my lawn tractor. The only time I rake leaves it to get them out from the fence to center of the lawn so I can get them mulched.
In my years of Baltimore confinement, good times were had with leaves. I bribed the guy running the city mulch facility with a 6 pack of cold Cokes and got unlimited amounts of composted leaves for use in my neighborhood garden. Incidentally, he looked and sounded exactly like Robert Duvall. Go figure. And I collected neighbor's bagged leaves to fill in the ditch in my back yard every year until it was no longer a 10' deep gouge. Good times.
To best support ‘wildlife’ and ‘soil health’? That means next spring you’re gonna have a bumper crop of grubs and the armadillos are gonna feast on them by digging up your entire lawn…
I tried using leaves as mulch and it worked pretty good, I only tried it on one garden box and that one box needed the least attention regarding weeds the whole summer. I guess that that means that the experiment will be expanded this year. The tomatoes didn't grow very big, though. But I think that was a soil depletion thing that the leaves were not enough to overcome.
Billy Blaze Sez
Note to self... Electric Collection Vehicles!
as Oh Yea said..
Just mulch with your mower. every week or two, just like the summer.. For for a few weeks: then done!
I have printed this and posted it conspicuously around throughout our house, with little effect on my wife's penchant for a tidy lawn. Long ago, a wise man told me, "Georgia Pacific (a timber & paper company) owns millions of trees, they never rake a leaf & they make millions!" Good advice.
But, but...I have this new leafblower...
This has long been my practice. In my case it is down to laziness. My yard is an ecological wonderland.
I credit Meade with introducing me to the concept years ago. While pretty inept with gardening, I know something about wildlife and it makes sense to me.
I am not sure that saying that it will increase your chipmunk population is all that great a sales point.
I am positive that you posted this same article last fall.
Dog paradise.
You'd think the local progressives would be up to speed on this environmental issue, but no.
A foolish consisteny when it comes to lawn care is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines and HOAs.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, with a some help from NorthOfTheOneOhOne
"Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees"
When I lived in Maine 20 years ago I mowed the lawn in the fall while the leaves were dry. We knew then that the mulch insulated and nourished the grass.
It is astonishing that people still rake (or pay others to rake).
I tried to convince my father of this but I still had to rake the yard.
A house I used to own was surrounded by oak trees. I tried leaving some of them over winter. The fallen leaves were still there the next spring, like pieces of thin leather. They were stick together, got moldy, and killed off patches of lawn they shaded out. Also, people who don’t want any mowed grass around their house must be living in a place where there are no snakes or ticks.
So nice to have my slothful tendencies affirmed. 😊
Althouse’s hunch is correct. I use a mower to mulch. I’m a big believer in the conservation of energy especially my own.
Count me among the leaf-leavers.
When I think of all the time I wasted because of leaf raking, hauling, bagging . . .
That part about providing a habitat for small mammals was perhaps less persuasive than the rest.
I think it's a balance. I have two huge towering trees in a very small area. I must remove some of the leaves. I used to remove all of the leaves - now I take into account the natural benefits, and make piles on flower and plant beds.
The first year I did this - the stupid HOA came into my yard and blew it all away. (they are not supposed to do this.)
I now have locks on the gates. The locks are also there because the progressive radicals who run the show in town adore crime and criminals - and crime is off the charts.
This is SOP at Chateau Bar. We endeavour to keep the driveway and walkways somewhat clear, but the rest stays put. There are no lawns, here at the Chateau. We are surrounded by Mother Nature. We clean up the larger piles in the Spring, A once a year operation.
Blogger tim in vermont said..."I am not sure that saying that it will increase your chipmunk population is all that great a sales point."
I had the same thought.
"To best support wildlife and soil health, experts say leaves should be left where they fall."
Experts again. Too many experts in that article, some were actually making sense.
Leaves left on the lawn block sunlight and make dead patches of grass. Mulching leaves can acidify the soil. Leaving leaves all over the lawn would make my back yard resemble the forest floor, which is mostly dirt, with some patchy vegetation.
"You don’t have to keep them on your lawn where they fall, but what we want you to do is keep them on property,”
This expert makes sense for sufficiently large lots. Dump the leaves in a mulch box in the back corner, and let them break down.
Not a good idea, I tried it one year and ended up with my lawn severely damaged by snow mold.
https://extension.unh.edu/blog/2018/10/it-absolutely-necessary-rake-leaves-fall-or-can-it-wait-until-spring
I tried the "leave the leaves" method in California and ruined the lawn. Even with a mulching mower, the lawn was covered and was ruined. California lawns look and act like lawns all winter long.
And nobody hates leaf blowers more than I do!
"I tried it one year and ended up with my lawn severely damaged by snow mold."
The important thing here however is that you relieve the government of an expense that we've already paid for with our taxes - the picking up of rubbish. We pay for that service, but government is using their embeds in the media to attempt to convince you that you really don't need that service. It's not about your lawn and they don't care if your grass dies. They need that money for 7-figure pensions. This "reporting" is prepping you for the future where raking leaves is outlawed - your lawn be damned.
If the Washington Post says to do a thing, do not do that thing.
too many leaves - you get mold and disease. Again - it's a balance.
“I look around my own neighborhood, which is full of very progressive people, and I still see many piles of leaves moved out to the terrace for pickup by the city's bulky collection vehicles.”
OK, that made me laugh out loud. Among the middle-class, politics end where they interfere with aesthetics. Unless laziness is there to mitigate, natch.
Multi-front war on civilization. Let nature reclaim the land around you.
Our suburb collects organic matter (clippings, leaves, limbs -- detritus), grinds it up, composts it and sells it back to the taxpayers so we can put it back where we found it.
Works for me.
(Has "detritus" ever appeared in the Ann Althouse blog? It's a favorite word of mine.)
My only issue is White Pine needles. They must be raked; a mulching mower has little effect and a leaf blower not much better.
I'm convinced. Convince my wife.
Leaf mulching has become politicized, but it's heartening to see that the debate is not yet rancorous. I remember the smell of burning leaves from my youth. Rotting leaves. Burning leaves. They were pleasant smells. The nearness of death--but not too near--brings out the poet and not the politician in people. I bet Louse Gluck wrote some poems about mulching and dead vegetation.
There's no one size fits all answer. And there are also half-way positions.
As part of our "deal" on household chores, I am the desiginated lawncare guy/leaf remover. Most of the leaves get moved to the compost. But those right near the trees or those too hard to get are Leaft behind to nourish the soil.
At least that what I tell my wife. I love it when laziness and enviromentalism coincide.
I'm so old I remember the sounds of the neighbor's lawn sweepers! Yeah that's old. Now I hear the golf courses' 25 H.P. V-Twin leaf blowers.
Progress!
Didn't Victor Mature play Detritus with Steve Reeves back when?
Raking leaves is good exercise. And the grandkids like jumping in them.
I had a leaf/twig shredder. I would take my truck and gather those bags of raked leaves and increase my compost by 20x. Then I used that on what everyone else was purchasing sprays and applicants for.
Idiots.
Mold and mildew to keep the lawn blighted, and the soil, too. Leaves provide a habitat for earth crawlers.
--- I look around my own neighborhood, which is full of very progressive people, and I still see many piles of leaves moved out to the terrace for pickup by the city's bulky collection vehicles... You'd think the local progressives would be up to speed on this environmental issue, but no. Many of them are still living in the 20th Century
The century in which your progressives live is, more specifically, the Century of Maximum Personal Convenience for Me, Myself, and I. The possibility that you are even slightly surprised by behavior such as this -- well, there should be no possibility of surprise at their self-serving behaviors. They are manifest in every phase of their comfortable, hypocritical, self-indulgent lives. A mode they try to alleviate now and again with loud bouts of self-righteous condemnation of others.
Don't garner the leaves.
In my town (as I suspect in most towns) the leaves are taken to "dumps" where they are bulldozed into huge composting piles, which are turned regularly and break down into compost which is available for members of the public to take away for free and use in their gardens.
If you leave the fallen leaves in your garden, you will have a semi-permeable layer of leaves where nothing grows. It takes time to break down the leaves. If you blow the leaves into your borders you will have dead, smelly borders.
We have a leaf composter, which is like a large upside-down weed whacker in a barrel. It chops up the leaves and we spread them in the border. We do that every couple of years, because it's a lot of work and too much is not good.
I know these things because my wife is a gardening genius. She knows everything and has a spectacular garden and borders.
A few years ago the town proposed to stop collecting leaves from the edge of the street, to save money. The taxpayers spoke very loudly on that. The leaf pickup program abides.
I always give the yard one last mow late November/early December to mulch the leaves on the yard.
Until 1986, I lived in Danville, Illinois where they let you burn your leaves, either in a barrel, or on the curb of the street (which probably illegal, but unenforced). The autumnal, ever-present pleasant smell of burning leaves remains a vivid memory to me, although I"m sure those with breathing ailments would feel otherwise. I also remember that although I've always enjoyed lawn work, I hated the task of raking leaves.
Where I presently reside - Hollywood, Florida - there are very few deciduous trees, with the resultant paucity of leaves on the ground. Those that are there just get picked up by the lawn mower and put on the mulch pile.
Randomizer is correct. If you mulch the leaves into the lawn they ph will be way off and you will have a crappy lawn with lots of very healthy weeds.
Lawns need a much less acidic soil than forests produce, which is why lawns have to be regularly limed (at least here in New England).
"Experts say..."? Do tell.
We pay for that service, but government is using their embeds in the media to attempt to convince you that you really don't need that service.
You identified the players and almost the goal.
This gambit is to give the voters a big FU!. You dont get a govt of the people, for the people, by the people. NOPE. You dont get what you want because you are overruled by un-elected self declared experts.
We see this in the EPA
We see this in ACGCC
We are still seeing this in covid mechanizations.
We see this in education. All sorts of sillyness foisted on our children that have made the kids less educated that anytime in the last 100 years. But elected people did not have to risk their reputation by voting on something
Governance by expert. This protects the elected from having to publicly take a position that might put their sinecure in jeopardy.
I just thinned and forest mulched seven unhealthy acres that had been abandoned and overgrown for decades. Most is wooded or creek front, so it will take care of itself with wild elderberry and prehistoric ferns, like the ridgeside half, that thins itself because trees naturally fall down. I'm trying to reintroduce pawpaw and older plants that featured in frontier nutrition, but the seasons haven't cooperated so far.
Boy, is that mulcher one wild machine.
I burn then rye and clover the big garden for winter. But I want to have little or nothing to mow in the few sunny acres, now mulched, that had gone from grass to a mess of blackberry and poison oak. Has anyone had success with low spreading perennial clover mixes, or low-growing wildflowers? I wouldn't mind an acre of dandelions greens and sorrel, or something else experimental. The neighbors are goats and cows and chicken and ducks and deer, so nobody is going to be annoyed if the dandelion goes rogue. Just south of the start of the Appalachian Trail. I'm overwhelmed by all the Ag. outreach websites, and if I do this wrong, it's gonna be a lot of wrong to fix.
In some areas, Code Enforcement will show up to your property and give you a ticket if you don't collect and dispose of your leaves.
Years ago, a friend of mine saw a story on the TV news about how you could save water by washing your car on your front lawn. So he tried that and got a ticket from the City of Brea for illegally parking his car on his front lawn.
"I look around my own neighborhood, which is full of very progressive people, and I still see many piles of leaves moved out to the terrace for pickup by the city's bulky collection vehicles."
I mow my lawn about three times per year. It provides great cover for inner-city wildlife. I feed every bird and animal that comes into my yard. So much so, that I get hawks everyday looking to fill their bellies (and splashing around in the birdbath on really hot days) the cover that not mowing provides kind of keeps it fair for all creatures involved.
Be wary of soil rot and parasites in sustained wet conditions.
"In some areas, Code Enforcement will show up to your property and give you a ticket if you don't collect and dispose of your leaves."
Leaves can clog storm drains.
"you will have a semi-permeable layer of leaves where nothing grows."
You say that like it's a bad thing. But I transplant my plants. The season here is way too short for growing most stuff from seeds. So it works fine for me.
I was driving through suburban Massachusetts the other day and there was some guy must have been feeding the wild turkeys, because he had a couple of big fat ones that could look at you over his fence.
Depends on several factors: local climate, number of trees, layout of the yard, local insect situation.
What works well in Wisconsin won't necessarily work well in a wet, warm, shady locale. Like mine.
Not that I haven't left the leaves in place some years, but eventually there's a moldy, nasty mat of crud to be removed.
The bugs and critters prosper without any additional assistance from me.
I would gladly not rake leaves up off our lawn but for the fact that if they are left in their thick woodsy splendor, the lawn grass won't grow next spring. Forsooth, 'twill be buried and sunlight shall not touch the hidden, verdant stalks.
"support wildlife"?
Hell, I'm supporting a lot of wildlife in the form of huge rabbits who arrived in my Boston suburb about 20 years ago. They and squirrels dig holes in the lawn, leaving it with ugly divots.
After seeing the damage they cause, I'm ready to go all Elmer Fudd on them.
What gilbar said. Bagging leaves is a pain and mulching them returns nutrients to the soil. Oh, and the lawn service that treats our lawn recommends it and the lawn looks great.
mikee said:
"Incidentally, he looked and sounded exactly like Robert Duvall. Go figure."
*****
Probably AI.
Step 1: Mow leaves into bagger 10 to 1 reduction. 2: Place bagged leaves in piles in areas that are mulched. 3. Run back and forth with mulching mower until you smell sawdust. Leaves are gone and all organics will return to the soil
Turn leaves into feathers. Don't wait until stuff has to become law.
@Tina Trent get with your extension service and check out controlled burns. It'll probably take more than one to get the unwanted stuff under control, but the I think the results will speak for themselves. Reclaiming overgrown land is one of life's deep pleasures.
Raking leaves is equitable and inclusive healthcare for the diversity of the human population with rare exceptions for the morbidly sedentary.
When I was young, families would gather up their leaves in the street and burn them. Sending them off to landfills is step up from that environmentally speaking. Don't push it.
In Brooklyn, almost no one has a lawn to worry about. At our house, the leaves that fall in our (small) backyard end up in the planting beds as mulch/compost. Much easier than doing anything else with them. Those that fall in the front of the house are used for mulch in the tree pit on the sidewalk but that’s too small to take much of it. The rest gets bagged and put out for pickup by the City’s composting truck. Composting is nominally mandatory here, but effectively just optional. Many neighbors just do nothing — the leaves, front and back of the houses, just lay where they fall, until washed into the sewers by rain or buried by snow. Eventually a City street sweeper comes by and cleans up whatever remains.
Aggie,
I am uncertain about "controlled burns" where the land is laced with poison ivy/oak. Aerosolized toxic oils are no fun.
Most progressives are virtue signaling idiots with strong cognitive dissonance properties. Not very surprising to me.
We bought our current home in October three years ago. When we arrived in January to move in the oak leaves were two feet deep. No one here has a lawn. The properties are all covered in landscape stone. The last two months of the year everyone blows the leaves back into the woods behind the houses.
It's noisy but necessary.
Leaves? That's typical halfway-measure comfortable-suburban stuff.
To truly serve Gaia, we all must dig shallow trenches, lie down in them, and die. Animals will feast on us, and bacteria can handle the remainder. Anything less is selfish and hypocritical.
Tina Trent, my former neighbor got poison ivy in her lungs from a burn. Be careful.
Thanks, Aggie! We do have a lot of enthusiastic agricultural outreach people in our counties and state schools. I know some people use goats, too, but that seems complicated.
The last few years of forest fires convinced me to do something sooner rather than later. There's a lot more that goes into keeping up a forest plot than I expected, but I don't think I could ever live in a city or a suburb again. There's something about land...
No. The leaves when ground up and mixed with compost make excellent fertilizer for our vegetable garden . As well grass clippings during summer go right into the garden. I like my manicured lawn.
The most clever use of fallen leaves I've ever seen was a Halloween costume put together by a roommate years ago.
She sewed somw old pillowcases together---leaving holes for her legs and head---put the thing on, and stuffed the cases with leaves from our yard.
I contributed by making a Tetley Tea label using some cast-off white cardboard and Magic Markers, secured to the pillowcases with sturdy twine.
Voila! A big walking tea bag!
I only bag in weed season, that matter goes in the green recycle. I mulch regular grass and leaves. The newest mulching blade on my EGO e-mower literally pulverizes organic matter. No virtue signaling about an electric mower, I just prefer avoiding the hassle, noise and vibration of gas. It's not cheap but I don't care when my comfort is concerned.
Thanks Ralph. I know we can't burn the poison oak. A family near here all had to be hospitalized.
Goats are good for that. They can, and apparently do, eat anything.
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