Some maple leaves in full colour
The days are getting cooler, nights longer and the leaves are changing colour. Fall is in the air. Time to dig out the sweaters, pumpkin recipes and rakes. Well, maybe not that last one.
If you are lucky enough to live in a neighbourhood with a lot of trees, chances are you are familiar with the annual ritual of spending hours each fall raking up leaves, bagging them and putting them out on the curb to be taken away, most likely to a landfill. Few people seem to enjoy it, yet we do it anyway in order to have a ‘tidy’ looking lawn. But, the real winner in this situation is the rake industry because all that hard work of removing all the leaves from the urban ecosystem actually does more harm than good.
That’s right fellow lazy folks: It’s better for nature if we just let leaves be.
Although it might look lifeless, a layer of leaves on the ground is its own mini ecosystem, providing food, shelter and nesting materials to help a variety of urban wildlife get through the winter, including worms, salamanders, chipmunks and toads. A lot of bees and butterflies will also lay their eggs in the leaf litter in the fall to hatch in the spring, kickstarting the new season of life in the city. When we rake leaves and remove them from our yards, we are disrupting the lifecycles of all kinds of creatures or even removing them completely, including the beneficial insects and bees that are good for your garden.
A toad hanging out in the leaf litter. Photo via Brian Henderson on Flickr CC BY 2.0
Of course, there a few places where letting leaves be can be a safety hazard. You will still want to remove the leaves from your rain gutters and make sure that storm drains are clear, but this doesn’t mean that your leaves need to end up in a landfill. Spreading a layer of leaves over your garden is essentially free compost that works to add organic matter and nutrients to the soil and feeds the vast number of microbes that are critical for healthy soils. Leaves can also help protect the bulbs of perennials and shrub roots over winter from freeze-thaw cycles.
So many things that are good for nature and the planet require a lot of effort on your part: trading in your car for a bike? So sweaty. Reusable bags and water bottles? Who can ever remember to bring them? Solar panels? $$$$. Not raking your leaves is the eco-conscious, but lazy, person’s dream: Do literally nothing and help the wildlife in your neighbourhood, have healthier, more productive soils and create less waste.
Cover photo via Caribb on Flickr CC BY 2.0
