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As a Brit we were always taught to gently disturb leaf piles before jumping in them or throwing them into the fire, just in case hedgehogs were in there. The habit has stuck, although I now just rake our leaves up onto the mulched beds and leave them. The chickens will then pull them apart and consume any living thing unfortunate enough to live there.
Or realize that there is still tons of land that isn’t maintained and is actually a better habitat for bees anyway. Even in your own neighborhood ther is plenty of places that don’t get tended to. This is really just a diversion to redirect people from all the things the ag industry does that harm the bees on a scale us individuals, even collectively can’t hold a candle to. Remember when they tried to convince us that leaving the water running while we brush our teeth was a major usage of fresh water. But again, compared to the ag industry, all household water use is a drop in the bucket.
Sure but… It’s still a really good advice and I’m glad someone posted it. I rarely rake away leaves for reasons like this, and this gives me one extra reason to not do so.
That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but we can all be right : fight the important battles for large scale effects while enjoying the small scale effects of individual actions.
For insects, pristine lawns are a huge problem. This isn’t quite comparable.
Brings nutrients into your soil so you have a healthier lawn
That has not been my experience. The leaves wreck the ph of the soil and block light from letting grass grow.
I’ve decided to leave the leaves on my yard and I swear my neighbors are mowing and leaf blowing twice as much just to spite me.
IDGAF. I’d rather have fireflies and bumblebees than human neighbors
Fireflies were spectacular this year.
In the front yard I let the wind take whatever leaves it takes. In the back I rake a path to the gates. Those leaves get put in a large open bin along my fence which makes nice soil in a year of so. Everything else is as nature intended.
I’m hoping I can stem the collapse. I saw three fireflies this past summer. Which is a 3x improvement over the summer before that.
But coming from a place where I could walk through the woods on a dark night just by the light of fireflies it hurts my soul to be somewhere so sterile.
We don’t get fireflies where I am, and one of my brothers took his kids on a trip to the Statesian South, his motivation being so they could see fireflies before they go extinct. I kind of wish I’d tagged along.
And then they complain that their fruit garden isn’t working.
Too bad HOAs are far more concerned with making sure everything looks plain and perfect to the 70 year old humans walking on the street rather than giving any craps about wildlife.
In a previous house I rented, the HOA ladies would drive around the neighborhood roughly 3 times a week. There were less than 200 homes in the whole subdivision. Even if you walked slowly, it would only take an hour to walk the whole thing, but instead they drove.
You think anybody is walking on the street in the US?
I’m not American but my understanding is that many of those “suburban” residential blocks have sidewalks and you can walk around withing the confinement of your block. However blocks are isolated from each other and you need a car to go somewhere else.
There are places in the US, that when you buy a house or property, you are given a choice. You can build a sidewalk for it yourself, or you can pay the city/county for a sidewalk.
The thing is, if you pay the city/county for the sidewalk, they stipulate that they can build that sidewalk where ever they want. This does not have to include in front of, or anywhere near, your house
The US is a very strange place.
My block of suburbia growing up only had a sidewalk for the last 2 houses on it, everyone else didn’t get one
So that’s nice
I’m increasingly seeing neighborhoods where there’s only a sidewalk on one side of the street…and then it terminates for no reason…and then it starts again…
It’s so bizarre.
Hah, I forgot that there are actually lots of suburban places that have no sidewalks. I was more talking about how no one walks and everyone drives, but it seems everyone interpreted that to mean specifically walking in the driving lanes.
Absolutely. There’s a lot in my neighborhood… And it’s annoying when there’s a perfectly good sidewalk right there.
America build the suburbs as a big fake playground where you can walk your dog.
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Yeah, quite a few
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Don’t worry, they’re also hostile to humans under the age of 70
I don’t view this as a “pick up the leaves or not” false choice. I leave the leaves in some areas and mow over/pick them up in others. They’re literally free mulch and compost
If you leave them all in place they all turn into free mulch and compost anyway. And you avoid using the fossil fuels to power the mower you don’t need in the first place.
I have a battery powered mower and utility has done a pretty good job of incorporating renewables into their mix
I also have some small spots where I want grass
That’s probably the least efficient way to mulch that stuff, don’t just leave it out like that
And you avoid using the fossil fuels to power the mower you don’t need in the first place
Ah, should we all be using the push powered ones, then, cuz those are fucking terrible. Not having grass is nice for those who don’t live where it’s a legal requirement, but that’s out for many people, and you do have to cut it or you’ll get a different law visit instead
Go to a farm, ask for stall muckings…free compost.
You will want to be sure to sift them a little, as there will be a lot of stones in them, in my experience.
Stones shouldn’t be an issue for plants though, they’re normal in nature.
until it snows, then it becomes a slip-n-slide for all.
our yard and sidewalks / pavement becomes slime slick if they’re left around. I doubt there are many bees in my leaf piles, it’s been raining for a month straight.
Just remember that month suggestions online are for certain geographic areas. You might need to move them earlier or later. (The best rules I have seen is when nights are above 50 F in North America)
In other words, leave nature alone and let it do the thing it designed itself to do
And now I’m even more glad that where I live they leave the leaves under the tree. Didn’t know that bumblebees live under that leaves left under the tree. Now I wanna leave a commest about the cute bumblebees that live under the leaves that someone left under the tree.
P.S. sorry, couldn’t hold myself, sorry:)
Colony collapse was due to fungicides being sprayed in the day. -Bees don’t need extra pollen (they have plenty of food to spare which is why we have honey as a product), and they don’t need people’s lawns (pick the leaves up before winter).
Leaving leaves is just being an asshole neighbor making safe paths for vermin to get into houses, and reduce the value of neighboring properties.
Bumble bees do not produce large amounts of honey.
They keep enough food for a couple of days bad weather, but otherwise they don’t overproduce at all.Since HOAs were mentioned, I assume the previous comment was about the US (unless there are countries in the Old World where they are as prevalent, but I know of none). Domestic honey bees aren’t native to the US, and many native bees are endangered for many different reasons. In the rest of the world as well, honey bees aren’t the only bees, or the only pollinating insects, and each pollinator has their plants of predilections, some species of plants depend entirely on some species of insect, so insect biodiversity is very important. Protecting native bees in the Americas has particular stakes, because they’re the most adept at pollinating the native plants which are the cornerstones of several ecosystems.
Please cite your sources.
Does his ass count as a source?
I think that counts as a secondary/#2 source?
You’re not OP
Lmfao
Leaving leaves also kills the grass under them.
oh no! Anyways…
It most certainly does not. Source: have a tree, a lawn, and no interest in spending time raking leaves.
I’ve got two big sycamores in my front yard, and they both are currently dropping leaves the size of dinner plates in enough quantity to completely cover large portions of the yard. If I don’t rake or mulch them, they will smother whatever ground cover that’s underneath them. I know this because I tried leaving them one year and it took the next three years to get all the mud pits left behind in the spring to fill back in.
It really depends on how many leaves we’re talking; a thin, evenly distributed layer? Yeah that’s just mulch and is great. A thicker layer that turns slimy and dense? That grass is a goner. Area and species of leaves probably pays a big part I imagine. I have an area near a fence where the leaves piled up and were left a year and now there’s no grass there, even a couple years later (there’s a super embedded layer of decomposing leaves that’s blocking everything else out even after removing the bulk of the leaves)
Of course, there’s never room for nuance in these conversations.
