If you are looking for the perfect way to be a hero without ordering or making a ridiculous costume with a big S on the front of it, here is the perfect way to do it. Leave your leaves. Yes, you read that right. Leave your leaves. In addition to making your neighbors think you’ve lost your mind; you will be a hero. You will be a hero to insects, bees, butterflies, other invertebrates, small animals, and other creatures that might need cover from winter’s harsh behavior.
When you leave your leaves, you are protecting next years’ moths and butterflies that form their chrysalis or cocoon to rest out the winter weather under those leaves. Emerging in the spring, beautiful butterflies, and moths. Bees and their young that have been overwintering in an empty stem of a flower from a summer gone by, crawl out to greet the spring fresh air. There are so many animals that live in leaves: spiders, snails, worms, beetles, millipedes, mites, and more—that support the chipmunks, turtles, birds, and amphibians that rely on these insects for food. It’s easy to see how important leaves really are to sustaining the natural web of life.
Leaves improve your soil by mixing with heavy clay soil to make a more suitable planting conditions for some plants. Leaves also help to increase the moisture retention of drier soils. They also act as insulation to plants as the cold of winter sets in.
We are socially conditioned to tidy up in the fall, we rake, we pile, we rake, we pile, we mow them, stuff them in bags, and PAY for them to be hauled away. We pay city workers to suck them up into their leaf machines. Really all they are doing is mulching them up to dump them into the landfill or to use as mulch around the city in the spring.
Chances are you spent money to tend to your garden to make it a beautiful place to enjoy for yourself, your family, and friends. You provided a place for pollinators, bees, butterflies, and other insects to live and thrive all spring and summer, why destroy all that work? Why deconstruct your yards’ ecosystem?
Be the HERO. Leave the leaves.
– by Becki Wells, President