I’m trying not to feel needy after reading the latest “leave the leaves” wisdom in a very good article by Margaret Roach (gift link) that ran in the NYTimes last week. No, I am not arguing with one bit of the advice – backed up by serious research – about the importance of doing this and the various ways it should be done. Including this: No shredding, please! In this article, shredding is just as bad as raking in terms of the insect life that is lost. While it may keep leaves out of the landfill, I can see where it wouldn’t protect habitat.
It’s just that not one thing in the article is applicable to my garden. I do not have a largish, suburban or rural domestic landscape. Actually, that pretty much leaves me out of almost everything that most garden columnists – those that remain in this pitifully shrinking field – describe and advise.
The fact that I have no turfgrass, which is supposed to be kind of a good thing, is actually a detriment when it comes to leaves. Leaves are much easier to move around when you have a big lawn and shoving a bunch of leaves under a tree for the winter sounds like a fine idea. If you have that situation.
In terms of leaves, the advice to the urban gardener would need to be: don’t have a garden. Give up whatever green space you do have to the street trees that are about to dump 25 bags worth of leaves all over your property. Allow your perennials and emerging bulbs to be smothered by thick maple and cherry leaves that take years to break down.
The advice in Roach’s article is based on this two-year study by Maryland scientists: “To examine how autumn leaf removal affected the spring emergence of overwintering insects and other key arthropods, they established square-meter-sized study plots in 20 residential yards in suburban Maryland, whose owners followed organic management practices.”
Right. The fact that the word “yards” is used says it all. I do not have a yard. I have never had a yard. And there’s no mention of anything these homeowners might be doing with their “yards” other than making a nice home for leaves.
The concern is all for the insect life, not the gardeners, which I appreciate and, on paper, agree with.
But it’s kind of like I’m viewing a reality show that has nothing to do with me. Maybe when I stop gardening, but by then I’ll probably be in a patio home with a leaf-blower-loving HOA.
Yes!!! Thank you for putting this out there. I could not agree more. The damage done in my garden by leaving the leaves for even a week (when it’s raining and they cover EVERYTHING) is incredible.
No access to the article, but still some thoughts. What kinds of insects were greatly affected? Were there so many less insects that birds were starving? What about damage from some of the insects on plants? Since predator/prey populations often run in boom or bust cycles with each other from year to year, was this much different. And finally, if your going to worry about insect populations in urban areas, how about the effect on insect populations of plunking down a house or an apartment building on a big chunk of land and planting lawns and beds on the remainder, surrounded by concrete and tar sidewalks and roads. Just wondering about the focus here.
Do you feel every submission to GR must relate to your garden’s size and character? Surely you realize a vast number of readers DO have a yard. Sure there are climates and regions without deciduous trees dropping leaves but I urge you to embrace this conversation and the current notion of beneficent environmental stewardship
Not sure how I have not embraced the conversation. I shared it with Rant readers and said I agreed with the cause. And I also shared my personal experience. That’s why we blog.
We have eight Ranters, with eight different gardens and eight different ways of gardening — we don’t do hive mind here. Elizabeth is raising real concerns that thousands (perhaps millions) of fellow gardeners share. GardenRant was founded to voice those differences when they crop up. —MW
Amen.
I agree Elizabeth. Many, many of us can not possibly “leave the leaves”. I’m lucky enough to have a lovely yard but between the trees in the yard and those surrounding it, all my yard would consist of is fallen leaves.
I live next to a greenbelt and am surrounded by big leaf maples who seem determined to smotherkill any vegetation that presumes to grow in their domain.
I’m sorry about any insects who suffer because I shred those leaves in order to speed up their decomposition and to allow other things to sprout and grow despite the murderous trees intent.
But the things I’m trying to grow include flowering plants the pollinators and butterflies need, and unless I’ve been misinformed those are just as endangered, probably more. The insects who need the matted leaves will just have to make do in the extensive woods behind my house.
Totally agree!
Sorry I didn’t put background into this. I have a very large backyard in Far Rockaway, NY that is an organic garden. It provides most of our food for the year. Plenty of leaves to pick up out front. Tried to leave them in place, but neighbors get on my case, so I usually rake them into the bed in front of the porch. Collect other people’s leaves to use as mulch and compost. Prefer to chop them up for this as they stay in place better and take less room so you can add more. Also don’t want to go slip-sliding on them after rain. Planning to add them to my chicken coop (~30 chickens) this year to see if they are good for that. Did published tree population research at University of Texas. Taught horticulture and in a veterinary science program at high school level. My thinking is that gardens/lawns are so variable that you need to take in the over-all picture when making various decisions on how to do things. Again, I had no access to the article so I don’t know if its attitude is “This is interesting to know” or ” See, you are doing it all wrong and destroying the world”. Maybe that is what bothers me. Attitude.
I gave what was to the best of my knowledge a gift link. However, I am not here to summarize articles. I prefer to do my own writing with my own content. Suffice it to say that it was based on a study that determined that removing, moving and shredding leaves are -all- detrimental practices -which I do think I included in my post. The article was highly factual and I did not detect attitude.
Thank you for this important rant, Elizabeth. I am getting so tired of all this leaf advice. Leaves are not the biggest culprit when it comes to the plight of insects. PESTICIDES are the real issue. Every year we get educated about not moving the leaves, not shredding the leaves – while nobody addresses the real problem: unregulated and careless use of pesticides. It’s a ridiculous rigmarole, designed to drive us all in overabundant guilt (whatever we do about the leaves, it will be wrong according to this study or that opinion). And while we desperately try to figure out what’s the right thing to do, the pesticide industry rakes in billions of dollars every year, poisoning pollinators, people, pets, and plants.
There are thousands of studies (and even court cases) confirming the danger of pesticides and their devastating impact on the environment. Anybody ever seen a wild bee in seizures after exposure to neurotoxic pesticides? Anybody ever seen bumble bees dying while pollinating flowers?? But since pesticides are a multi-billion $ business, nobody can touch the subject. Better blame it on mishandling leaves – because the disappearance of pollinators surely must be the result of some truly mean, ignorant gardeners raking and shredding some leaves in their garden…
Thank you Elizabeth. I often have trouble downloading the NYT articles. Will have my teenage grandson figure it out as I enjoy reading actual research. One of the most important things I tried to teach my students, besides having a love for and interest in science, was how to select, verify and read real scientific articles and abstracts rather than a lot of the garbage that is found everywhere today. They also need to feel they can question what they read and do more research to see if what they question holds or not.
I must confess I still don’t understand if “leave the leaves” means to literally leave them. I know many gardeners seem to rake them into their garden beds. But do you leave them there in the spring? My gardens would look awful weighed down by a mat of wet leaves. Mine sure don’t decompose as quickly as others claim they do. It would be hard to appreciate the plants emerging from a blanket of wet ugly leaves. Last year, I raked them from the lawn and placed them in a big pile behind my garage. At least it’s better (I assume) than shredding them or having them carted off.
Surely we can clear pathways made of concrete, bricks, bluestone or other materials. we don’t want a hazard nor a mess that gets into our homes. And I contend oak leaves take years to break down so I’d suggest getting the ball rolling with a weed whacker for those.
i have a suburban yard in a subdivision which is bordered by a lot of large trees–cherries, hackberries, one or two ginkos and hawthorns, oaks and a huge elm, one neighbor has a large sycamore which has huge leaves that blow in my yard. . my yard also has a lot of trees courtesy of mother nature. i have lived here 30 years and have never raked leaves. I offered to take the bagged leaves from the school behind me and simply dumped them in a pile, letting them decompose at their own rate. they made wonderful compost in a year. what all the fuss is about I have no idea. and yes i do have some grass but not a lot.
I was able to read the article, but that’s probably because I subscribe to the NYT. I appreciate Margaret Roach’s well-presented information that I believe provides reasonable suggestions for many gardeners on how to plan a balanced approach to supporting insect life while still having a satisfying, decorative garden. Doug Tallamy seems to take a similar view by suggesting that the “leave the leaves” mantra doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I’ve struggled with the dilemma for the 50 years that I have gardened her in the Blue Ridge mountains and have come to the conclusion that I will leave areas natural where I can but the areas right around our house I will maintain to be attractive for my pleasure. Granted, we live on a 25-acre wooded property with moss lawns and multiple beds of shrubs and perennials, so there is plenty of room to leave to the insects and wildlife. I have to blow the leaves off the moss or it will die over the winter but I blow them into the wild areas. There are also many brush piles at the edge of the woods. I tidy up my perennial borders around the house so that the early spring blooms can be appreciated. I have grown to be more comfortable with the approach of pleasing myself and trying to support the insects, birds and other wildlife as well. I think everyone has to decide for themselves what approach feels right for them based on individual circumstances, but having this factual information to base the decisions on is important.
Thank you, Eliz and commenters!
Something that should also be mentioned are the plants that won’t survive being covered with leaves all winter. From my rant from last fall, a list of places NOT to leave leaves: “On top of garden plants that could be smothered. Also from the BBG: “If you have a garden bed with small plants and large fallen leaves (bigger than those on your garden plants) or a large volume of them, the leaf drop could smother the plants. In BBG’s Rock Garden, for instance, there are several beds with very small evergreen succulent plants like stonecrops and hens and chicks. I move the fallen leaves from those beds so they don’t block the plants’ access to sunlight and air circulation, especially important for evergreens, which don’t go into winter dormancy.” (Sedums are the primary garden plants that I keep clear of fallen leaves, but also lamb’s ear.)”
Most “leave-the-leaves” messages mention the danger to lawns, but not the sedums and other drought-tolerant plants from dry places. The Roach article doesn’t mention them.
What I believe she did mention, that’s usually omitted, is the fact that there’s no right time to finally remove them, not even in spring. Tallamy says there’s no good time, so they should never be removed. Which in practical terms means stop gardening there.
Finally, it’s not JUST urban gardens that have no space to do that. I’m in a suburban townhouse, where the yard size isn’t much bigger than yours, Eliz, and like one commenter mentioned, I need all the space for the other ecological services they provide AND for my enjoyment (which is also considered an eco-service).
When I first started gardening the rule was remove everything because the leaves and dead perennials harbored bad bugs and bad fungus stuff like powdery mildew.
Now it’s keep everything because it harbors good bugs and fungus stuff.
How do the leaves know to keep the good bugs etc alive but not the bad? Just kidding.
This rant is hilarious and on point. Thank you for helping me organize my feelings after reading that NY times article. Keep it up Elizabeth!
This rant feels like a deliberate misunderstanding the research that this paper has presented. I will admit that I have not read the paper itself, but there has been a *lot* of coverage of it in stuff I do read and listen to. They seem to be trying to get people to realize that 1) running leaves through a mower is as deadly as setting in a landfill for insects and 2) the same for giant piles of leaves gathered to heat up and turn into compost. Which, when you stop and think about it, makes a lot of sense. Nobody is saying you have to leave leaves on concrete. If your tree is surrounded by concrete you’re not going to have much inset life in the soil anyway, because there’s not much soil and it’s probably too compacted. And the research seems to be *explicitly* saying you shouldn’t, say, pile all your leaves into the small area under your concrete-moated street tree because many insects can’t deal with being buried under a foot on leaves.
Oh, shoot. I didn’t mean that comment to be nested as a reply! Apologies!
No worries. But now -I- feel deliberately misunderstood. Nowhere do I mention concrete. I am discussing the differences between small urban gardens and the ones addressed in the survey. And I admit that the research makes sense. But it simply does not address many situations.
I will admit, I may have elided your post with some of the responses it got. I read the post shortly after it was published and it’s been in my head since then, to the point that I got into a grumpy argument with a family member who was fretting about whether they should be leaving the leaves… On their flagstone patio. I guess I’m grumpy because this research seems like such plain old common sense (insects do best in situations that… Best emulate the environments they evolved in! Shock! They don’t do well if you run them through a shredder! Double shock!) and it’s getting a lot of smart responses, but also some just silly stuff that feels like poking holes before the common sense can fully get out there.
This is a link to the study referenced in Margaret Roach’s article. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969725004565.
Thank you!! The 100 year old street trees in front of my house are bigger than my lawn. My lot is 49 feet wide and my house is 25 feet from the curb. An American sycamore and English walnut sit less than 30 apart in the park strip directly in front of the house. The sycamore had to be trimmed back so the branches don’t hang over my neighbor’s house, and its leaves can be the size of my head. Another sycamore, an oak, and a catalpa are within 100 feet. My bulbs are not emerging up from that suffocation, and my other plants won’t be happy about it either.
None of this landscape is native, and I can’t treat the leaf litter as though it is falling in its native environment. A mile from the river, my neighborhood would be sagebrush if it hadn’t been developed in the early 1900s. Large deciduous leaves are not found wintering in sagebrush. I have a native mountain mahogany in my backyard. It has tiny leaves that no one would ever imagine raking.
While I feel the Leave the Leaves sentiment and the March study are a critical message, one important note about leaves in urban environments, especially bordering streets, is that they really need to be kept out of storm drains to prevent flooding. Here in Seattle, Tilth Alliance is asking everyone – even without gardens – to remove those leaves. Also, they may be contaminated with oil and pollutants, so they are not good for home compost. So those leaves are best for municipal yard waste.