Yardening

I’ve been having a thought about leaves and the latest hot topic on all the non-plant lovers pages (this has been a hot topic for native plant gardeners for more than a minute). To leave or not to leave. The leaves, of course.

The lead in goes something like this: In order to fight climate change, we should stop bagging our leaves.

The extremists on the HOA side say, “We must all look the same! Uniformity or bust!”

The extremists on the naturalist side say, “ Don’t touch the effing leaves. They are mimicking the forest floor and you are killing everything good and healthy by removing them!”

As usual, I, the Not-Extremist, will tell you what I tell my kids during almost every impassioned speech they give about the unfairness of _____. It’s just not that simple. No conundrum has one answer. If it did, there’d be nothing to argue/consider/discuss in the world, and how boring would that world be? VERY BORING.

I digress. Back to the leaves.

First, let’s look at why one would remove leaves. The HOA (which we don’t have in our neighborhood, thank god) is not without logic. By removing leaves, the grass will not be smothered in it’s dormancy, the yard will be tidy (visual pleasure defined by some is nothing out of place), and there will be room for all of the kids to play. Oh, kids? Come play or you’re wasting all our hard work! My less kind version of this is “we must all conform to one way because that removes the possibility of differences that might make someone else uncomfortable. And we mustn’t do that.”

The other side has what I see as many good ideas backed by many years of nature doing what it does. Sprouting, growing, fruiting, dying. Ah, the great circle of life. I’m sure you can figure out where I land in this debate, and you’d be right. However, “It’s not that simple.” (Don’t grimace, I did warn you) In the forest, untouched (HA) by people, trees grow and flourish, and at the end of every growing season, they drop their leaves. There is a whole universe on the ground under a tree. A community of life that we can only watch in awe of it’s complexity.

But we (most of us) don’t live in a forest. And even those of us who do still clear some land for gardens, whether they are for food or beauty, or both. So, another theme from me, balance in all things. To leave or not to leave? For me, the answer is, “YES!”

Leaves have some amazing uses in our yard. They protect seedlings, the microsomal layer under the surface, and critters. They can be left where they fall to honor this purpose. They can be turned into leaf mulch, one of the best ever things you could possibly add to your gardens. They can be mowed into more bio-available mulch right on top of the grass, thus removing the risk of matting and smothering your grass (and removing the need for fertilizing during growing seasons- Yay for frugality!)

Me? I do all three. I mound un-mulched leaves around trees so that insects who are overwintering under leaves remain undisturbed to continue their lifecycle. I collect some leaves to add to garden beds to protect the life under the soil that makes my gardens thrive. What’s left on the ground gets mowed into mulch and left in place.

At the end of the day, my goal is not doing work that is not necessary. Especially when not working improves my yards potential for beauty, service and production during growing seasons. I think we should all reconsider why we need to remove nature from outside. And, by the way, it’s true. Leaving your leaves on your property in whatever state you decide works best for you does help fight climate change. So, there’s that too.