I was recently reading that the city of Cleveland was abruptly suspending its leaf pickup service. It was so sudden, people had of course already begun raking and blowing their leaves to their curbs, thinking the city would be picking them up. And now, these people will be forced to bag all of them up if they want to see them gone.
Not exactly the most pressing problem in the world, but hey, it’s all relative.
I bring this up because I’ve been fighting the same leaf battle myself for years. I live in a beautiful, tree-lined neighborhood and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but every autumn, I am faced with the onslaught of falling leaves that somehow continue to accumulate in my yard and my yard only no matter how many times I rake or bring out the leaf blower (I’m partial to the battery-powered ones).
Maybe I had a mental breakdown somewhere in the process, but I decided this year I’m done wasting my time moving all my leaves to the curb for pickup. I’m just going to run my lawnmower and mulch the suckers – and I’ve got science on my side to back up my decision. Mulching leaves provides a whole host of benefits to one’s yard, which are outlined in the following list by the Leave Leaves Alone organization:
(Source: Leave Leaves Alone!)
- Mulching is quieter and cleaner than leaf blowing
- Mulching reduces the need for fertilizer and avoids water pollution by reducing phosphorus and fertilizer leaching
- Mulching reduces the safety hazard of piled up or bagged leaves on the roadsides and saves taxpayer money for municipal leaf collection
- Mulching improves soil structure, water retention and percolation
- Mulching encourages the grass roots to penetrate more deeply, improving grass health
- Mulching makes the lawn more resilient to weather events like drought and flooding.
What is this obsession Americans have with blowing and raking their leaves, anyway? There’s probably a knowledge gap in there, sure, but having an immaculate lawn is a distinctly American mentality, a singular obsession almost every suburban dweller has. Leaves running amok on one’s lawn simply WILL NOT STAND, and we have been conditioned to believe we must spend countless hours every fall ridding ourselves of this completely natural and ultimately environmentally-friendly non-nuisance.
There are so many reasons to, well, leave the leaves alone as much as possible. While we don’t want huge piles of leaves to choke the underlying grass over the winter, running over the lawn with a mulching mower can help grind up the leaves and provide a layer that will instead feed the grass and provide cover for all sorts of important critters and insects. Isn’t that better than the constant weekend noise pollution from leaf blowers running all hours of the day? isn’t it time we reclaimed our falls and used this precious time for enjoying the sights and colors of the season rather than spend every waking second in the yard, taking part in an entirely futile practice that can only do harm to our environment in so many ways?
Join me in the leaf mulching revolution!
