New aesthetic needed

With October gone, the leaf blower season in my area is officially under way. Rain and heavy winds have brought down a lot of leaves, and many homeowners feel those leaves need to be disposed of post-haste. That means blowing or raking every last leaf into a pile and stuffing it into a leaf bag or vacuuming it into a truck to be transported to “away,” wherever that is.

Move 'em up and move 'em out

    Two years ago some local citizens rose up to protest the noise and health risks caused by leaf blowers. Some towns around the country have imposed meaningful limits, and some have even succeeded in passing outright leaf blower bans. But here, the team I was backing lost the fight, or at least the first round. We ended up with a complicated new noise ordinance that still allows leaf blowers seven days per week, with gas models permitted before Memorial Day and after Labor Day. 

After Labor Day, gas-powered leafblowers are free to roar in my neighborhood

I think this means the anti-leaf blower faction underestimated the determination of local landscape contractors to defend their business model. Leaf blower noise continues at a cost to the rest of us: loss of quiet enjoyment of our property. I hope we’ll eventually achieve an ordinance with more teeth.

    If I ran the zoo, we wouldn’t need leaf blowers because we wouldn’t clear fallen leaves from our yards. My town, like many, is stuck with a standard of landscape maintenance that dates to the aftermath of World War II. According to this aesthetic, fallen leaves are whisked out of sight as quickly as possible, and an ideal front yard consists of a swath of neatly mown lawn, as big as possible, backed by a few shrubs planted against the house’s foundation.

Neatness reigns

    As I’ve traveled farther along the path to a sustainable garden, I’ve gotten increasingly comfortable with seeing leaves on the ground. Fallen leaves on garden beds used to look like a mess to me. Now they’re a pleasing part of the view, just the way they’d be on a walk in the woods.

Fallen leaves enhance the beauty of the woods

    I’ve learned there are lots of good reasons to let those leaves lie on the ground. They add organic material to the soil as they slowly decompose, providing nutrients for plants and improving soil structure. They offer shelter for native insects, helping them survive the winter. They act as mulch, minimizing the number of weeds I’ll be coping with the next spring, insulating the soil so a sudden thaw or cold snap doesn’t kill my plants, and helping to hold moisture in the soil for roots to access.

Fallen leaves and pine needles benefit this shady bed

    Now I wonder why my neighbors bother to send away all that valuable organic material and then pay to replace it with mulch or soil amendments. If we send those leaves away, we’re actually depleting our own soil, because what our trees drew from the soil isn’t replenished by decomposing leaves.

Why send away organic material that should become part of your soil?

    But the truth is, I wouldn’t be letting those leaves lie if I hadn’t come to find them pretty. In garden design, neater isn’t always better.