Leaves are an organic winter blanket.
To rake or not to rake?
It’s that time of year again, where you can leave your bedroom window open at night and fall asleep with a cool breeze brushing across your face and listen to the sound of leaves rustling as you doze off.
To be clear, these aren’t the leaves on the trees, but rather the dried up ones that have fallen as the season begins to transition to winter.
Collecting all those leaves is a tedious and back-breaking job that a gust of wind could undo at any moment. As more people are looking to more natural gardens and lawns, should we be raking up the leaves at all?
We may not notice it, but leaves provide habitat and shelter for insects, butterflies, moths, and even some birds.
The idea behind not raking your leaves is to leave ecosystems for insects to winter. Canadians are not very good at doing that: as soon as we see the first green shoots, we start mowing, fertilizing and gardening, celebrating the last of snow.
Leaves are a source of organic matter that will break down and provide nutrients.
What we have learned is that those leaves that fall to the ground also provide very important habitats for insects, amphibians, invertebrates.
“What has nature been doing for millions of years? What have forest systems been doing? Trees take care of themselves by dropping their leaves, those leaves break down, and that becomes a source of nutrition for the following years. It feeds the soil microbes” Paul Zammit, professor at Niagara College's environment division,
There’s also the risk of suffocating your grass, if you choose not to rake. If your lawn is densely covered with leaves, it cuts out the sunlight that is needed for the grass to thrive. If your lawn is 20 per cent covered in leaves, just leave them alone, as they will blow around and break down on their own over time.
At 50 per cent, you can still avoid raking by breaking them down with a lawnmower. Any higher, you should remove some of them to avoid matting and killing your grass.
“Raking is also good in general for the turf in that it can remove some dead material and open some air spaces. It's sort of like a blowout for your hair.” Sara Stricker, communications and outreach coordinator at the University of Guelph’s Turfgrass Institute.
— Nicole Mortillaro, CBC , What On Earth,
Other actions
Educate your neighbours and building management about the harm caused by noisy 2 stroke gas-powered leaf blowers.
Tell your city councillor you want the city to transition from the use of gas- powered leaf blowers.
Join Gasbusters in our campaign to ban gas-powered leaf blowers and related garden equipment and we’ll keep you informed of the latest developments and how to make your opinion heard.
