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I’ve decided to leave the leaves on my yard and I swear my neighbors are mowing and leaf blowing twice as much just to spite me.
IDGAF. I’d rather have fireflies and bumblebees than human neighbors
Or realize that there is still tons of land that isn’t maintained and is actually a better habitat for bees anyway. Even in your own neighborhood ther is plenty of places that don’t get tended to. This is really just a diversion to redirect people from all the things the ag industry does that harm the bees on a scale us individuals, even collectively can’t hold a candle to. Remember when they tried to convince us that leaving the water running while we brush our teeth was a major usage of fresh water. But again, compared to the ag industry, all household water use is a drop in the bucket.
Sure but… It’s still a really good advice and I’m glad someone posted it. I rarely rake away leaves for reasons like this, and this gives me one extra reason to not do so.
That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but we can all be right : fight the important battles for large scale effects while enjoying the small scale effects of individual actions.
For insects, pristine lawns are a huge problem. This isn’t quite comparable.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the data, but isn’t the American lawn considered a major biome now? At least compared to wildlands.
Between lawns and monocropping in the US, yes we need to fight back against those activities and favor rewilding.
For those reading, start by introducing native plants to your parcel. Let nature do it’s thing. Then, consider going vegan since animals need multiple times the amount of land and water to grow: resources to grow the plants, then resources to grow the animals. Then, consider donating to organizations like The Xerces Society, the Wildlife Conservation Network, or MarAlliance. Better yet, find something local to you and join up!
You either missed the point, or you have fallen for the propaganda. Industry is a much higher % of the problem than your lawn. But they want to distract you by making you think you should do something with your yard to fix things. When the majority fail to do anything, they will feel like, well I didn’t do my part, so I can’t demand industry do anything. This allows them to keep destroying the environment. It’s a great tactic, worked well with plastic for a very long time. Your just helping them. Instead vote for people who care about us and the planet more than corporate profits. Regulate the industries and support lab grown meats.
After looking into the data, I’d probably agree with you.
The US USDA ERS estimates that urban area land use is the lowest of all categories, but is rising. Yet NASA found that turfgrass represents the largest irrigated crop in the US, 3 times as much as corn.
I will have to say that the research on this is quite outdated, with newer research seemingly coming from industry groups associated with the golf sector and giving rise to conflicts of interest.
But I generally agree with your sentiment. Place the blame on the individual, the citizen, rather than the corporations and economic industries. I’d tend to agree with you, although I wonder if the issues are necessarily mutually exclusive. Sure we might prioritize the latter, but the former gives people tangible reasons to point to and continue in their advocacy for the latter.
I don’t view this as a “pick up the leaves or not” false choice. I leave the leaves in some areas and mow over/pick them up in others. They’re literally free mulch and compost
Go to a farm, ask for stall muckings…free compost.
You will want to be sure to sift them a little, as there will be a lot of stones in them, in my experience.
Stones shouldn’t be an issue for plants though, they’re normal in nature.
until it snows, then it becomes a slip-n-slide for all.
our yard and sidewalks / pavement becomes slime slick if they’re left around. I doubt there are many bees in my leaf piles, it’s been raining for a month straight.
I deal with 3 massive city-owned (and admittedly beautiful) chinquapin oaks and two privately owned red maples on a 1/3 acre lot. If the leaves don’t get removed then everything dies as a result of the acidity and thick leaf cover that also wont fully decay before the next autumn. There is no room for a compost pile of that size considering that the leaves couldnt make up more than half of it. I’m not a fan of grass lawns but the city and the HOA have to give the ‘okay’ before a lawn change can be made.
As a Brit we were always taught to gently disturb leaf piles before jumping in them or throwing them into the fire, just in case hedgehogs were in there. The habit has stuck, although I now just rake our leaves up onto the mulched beds and leave them. The chickens will then pull them apart and consume any living thing unfortunate enough to live there.
I always mulch mine with my mower. Only bugs that might be in them is scorpions, grubs, ants, or the odd snake sometimes
How do I know when the queens are out?
Oh, you’ll know.
Early spring would be the easiest since no other “types” of bumblebee would be flying.
In other words, leave nature alone and let it do the thing it designed itself to do
wuht
A tree is like a quiet roommate, but makes a huge mess before leaving to travel internationally for half the year.
Colony collapse was due to fungicides being sprayed in the day. -Bees don’t need extra pollen (they have plenty of food to spare which is why we have honey as a product), and they don’t need people’s lawns (pick the leaves up before winter).
Leaving leaves is just being an asshole neighbor making safe paths for vermin to get into houses, and reduce the value of neighboring properties.
Since HOAs were mentioned, I assume the previous comment was about the US (unless there are countries in the Old World where they are as prevalent, but I know of none). Domestic honey bees aren’t native to the US, and many native bees are endangered for many different reasons. In the rest of the world as well, honey bees aren’t the only bees, or the only pollinating insects, and each pollinator has their plants of predilections, some species of plants depend entirely on some species of insect, so insect biodiversity is very important. Protecting native bees in the Americas has particular stakes, because they’re the most adept at pollinating the native plants which are the cornerstones of several ecosystems.
Lmfao
Leaving leaves also kills the grass under them.
It most certainly does not. Source: have a tree, a lawn, and no interest in spending time raking leaves.
I’ve got two big sycamores in my front yard, and they both are currently dropping leaves the size of dinner plates in enough quantity to completely cover large portions of the yard. If I don’t rake or mulch them, they will smother whatever ground cover that’s underneath them. I know this because I tried leaving them one year and it took the next three years to get all the mud pits left behind in the spring to fill back in.
oh no! Anyways…
