As leaves fall and the call to “leave the leaves” rises—from major news outlets to your next door neighbor—you may find yourself scratching your head as to how, exactly, to leave the leaves.
The slogan is a fun way to get people to consider a serious problem. We are in the sixth great extinction event in the history of the earth, which is directly affecting our food web. When one species goes extinct or its population declines severely, it can have a negative ripple effect on other species and the ecosystem as a whole. How does this tie into leaving the leaves in your own backyard? How does it help? And how do you do it?
Doug Tallamy can explain. He is an entomologist, a conservationist, and a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He’s even written a book, Nature’s Best Hope, which is a blueprint for saving the earth one backyard at a time. (It’s on Gardenista contributor Melissa Ozawa’s list of favorite gardening books: see In Gratitude: How a Gift from a Boss Led to a Love for Gardening Books.) Below, Doug gives us the low-down on leaving the leaves.
Photography by Joy Yagid.
Q: Why do you think people don’t leave the leaves?
A: We do what we observed when we were kids. It’s been part of our culture to get rid of the leaves. You either burn them or you put them out in the curb for the city to take away, but you have to take them off your lawn and do something with them.
Q: What’s the easiest way to start?
A: Well, there is a conflict between having that perfect lawn and and the leaves that fall on the lawn. So people say “I gotta get the leaves off the lawn.” [The solution is to reduce] the area you have in lawn. The perfect way to start doing that is to create beds under the trees that you have. And you do that by raking the leaves into those beds. And in the beginning when you’re trying to actually smother the grass, [to make the beds] you rake a lot of leaves, you make it pretty thick. My son bought a house and the first fall, he called me up and said, “Dad, I got too many leaves. What should I do with them?’” I said: “Put them in your flower beds.” He said: “I don’t have enough flower beds.” I said: “Exactly.” You increase the amount of flower beds and that’s where the leaves go. The extra ones that just don’t fit in those flower beds can go into a compost heap.
