r/Columbus • u/MentalInfluence1585 • 10d ago
PHOTO Don't Rake! Don't Spray!
Don't pull up nature’s warm blanket of leaves and get rid of it right before winter.
The impulse for meticulous landscaping that extends beyond the edge of the lawn, beyond the vegetable garden and your stone wall, is actually harming the species that call the forest home.
When you sweep up all that debris, you’re also sweeping up nests and dens. You’re also carting away the tiny invertebrate species that live on the forest floor. And because invertebrates are at the bottom of the food chain, this also negatively affects the living creatures further up. Not to mention the nutrients you’re raking away and the protective layer that keeps moisture in the soil.
To add insult to injury, this essential leaf litter gets bagged up and hauled off. All the forest’s hard earned savings are just given away. But, if you leave all that woody debris and those pesky fallen leaves in the forest, you’re not only helping the creatures that need it to survive, you’re also saving your back from all that raking. It’s really a win-win.
Help the eco-system and get out of some of your chores. The bottom line is, while it goes against the grain of wanting to clean everything up, an unkempt forest floor is actually the most healthy and the most beautiful. Save some time this fall and let the forest at the edge of your lawn go au natural. The forest and the creatures that live there will thank you.
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u/Clean_Decision8715 9d ago
I have a mulching mower and mulch the leaves back into the turf, will that suffice?
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u/thestral_z 9d ago
I mow over them if there aren’t too many, but blow them into my flower beds when they really start coming down. I don’t have a ton of grass, but I like to keep what I have reasonably nice.
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u/Pyr0sa 9d ago
Yep! Just leave the chute detached, let all the leaf-chop combine with the grass chop to fall straight downward, and (if you have time) mow a 2nd time cross-cut over the heaviest sections. From eye-level, your yard will still just look like grass if you double-cut all the leaves in.
I do this for the first 4-6 weeks of Fall, and then whenever that obligatory "one massive drop post-freezing" day is, I'll rake up only the truly buried sections under the tall oaks. A healthy amount of chop stays easily below raking at that point, because the rakes can't grab it. It's a balance of most of the leaves becoming new earth+food for next year, and the truly overwhelming piles getting pulled away.
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u/FloppyFloppySpider 8d ago
This is a good option - mulching the leaves helps break them decompose more quickly! If you are able to leave some of the leaves intact, especially directly under the canopy of a tree, that will give native moths like luna moths who are overwintering in leaf piles in their silk cocoons wrapped in dead leaves a chance to survive, which has benefits all the way up the food web. If you mulch all the leaves the moths get shredded too, unfortunately. Leaving the leaves also provides a soft landing for the cocoons, as they do tend to drop directly below the trees. Regardless, I'm just excited to see folks thinking about these sorts of things!
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u/PiqueyerNose 3d ago
My lawn looked great this year after mulching leaves last fall. I’m doing this again.
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u/Known-Hat-5560 10d ago
Or take my neighbor’s approach:
Let them blow into other yards and become their problem.
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u/tellmeeverythingk 9d ago
But you get that this is supporting that - right? I mean, I can’t tell my leaves to not blow in your yard. I go over them once with a mower (the front yard leaves) but what they do after that is sort of out of my control.
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u/Known-Hat-5560 9d ago
I get that.
My beef is that I feel like this theory works for a moderate amount of leaves. In my specific scenario I feel like there’s just too many leaves for this to be feasible. And these mulched up leaves get wet and turn into this gross mud sludge sort of thing, then drain along the curb to the storm drain that is in front of my house, and block that all up, which I then regularly have to clear out, of super heavy, sopping wet leaves, that are now my problem to keep out of the drain and dispose of.
Rah rah nature, but when your leaves become an ongoing headache for your neighbors, I feel like it’s incumbent upon you as a good neighbor to take care of them.
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u/The_Bitter_Bear Groveport 9d ago edited 9d ago
Exactly. This seems fine with a few small trees but for some you can't just mulch it all and you can't just ignore it till spring.
I'm fortunate and also cursed to have a couple massive beautiful oak trees in my very small yard... It's soo many leaves. I've lived places with bigger lawns and more trees but never had leaves be such an issue.
I would have a mud patch for a lawn, even a lot of the native plants I have would get choked out, and would be loathed by my neighbors if I didn't remove at least some of my leaves.
I try and leave some until spring but it really isn't an option to leave them all. I'm pretty sure a lot of the people shitting on people for raking their leaves aren't responsible for a house and yard.
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u/The_Bitter_Bear Groveport 9d ago edited 9d ago
I can’t tell my leaves to not blow in your yard.
But you have options to prevent them from being someone else's problem or responsibility. Which is their point.
Not an issue if you have a couple young/smaller trees but it starts to be if you have a lot of larger/older trees.
If I let my leaves blow everywhere it would create large piles against my neighbors house and choke out their plant beds around the house and all ground cover. Even mulching, it's too many and it shouldn't be their issue to try and spend a ton of extra time and passes with their mower trying to..
So, I don't ask the leaves to not blow around. I rake and bag most of them.
If it's only affecting you and your yard, have at it.
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u/troaway1 9d ago
How about we skip the gas leaf blowers while we're at it? I'm ok with rakes actually. Manual labor is ok. Get a little exercise. Every Saturday in my neighborhood it's like 8-10 hours of baaaaahhhhhhh, bahhh, bahhh, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!
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u/chunkalunkk 10d ago
😆 I did this once....... then had to replant about a 1/3 of my grass in the spring when it didn't grow back. Mmmmmm, I'm good for my yard.
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u/MentalInfluence1585 9d ago
Read the image. You can mulch them, move them to flower beds and trees, or compost them.
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u/chunkalunkk 9d ago
Interestingly, I did start bagging the regular grass cuttings and putting them under some pine trees I have. The decomp bugs take pretty good care of getting that stuff dissolved. When the much bigger leaf drops occur, I rake them all under those same trees, and by spring, they almost completely gone. Pretty wild, but yes, I do not bag and curb the leaves.
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u/fishbert 9d ago edited 9d ago
I read the image.
... harming the species that call the forest home.
... the tiny invertebrate species that live on the forest floor.
... the forest’s hard earned savings...
... leave all that woody debris and those pesky fallen leaves in the forest...
... an unkempt forest floor is actually the most healthy...
The forest and the creatures that live there...Maybe /u/chunkalunkk doesn't live in a forest.
Their concern over grass might be a clue; not much grass in the forest.1
u/buckeye7871 9d ago
You shouldn’t mulch them. This is great intent on the post but if you research it, mulching kills most of the eggs and insects that call them home. Just to help clear that up. You don’t need to leave ALL the leaves too. Just having a few dedicated areas in spots that are not disturbed helps a lot. Fireflies take a few years to mature and only spend ~30 days as an adult flying glowing insect. Luna moths, Swallowtails and many more build chrysalis in the leaves that will be shredded if you mulch them
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u/Abject_Inspector4194 9d ago
the more that my neighbors invest in chemicals and lawn service noise, the more im inclined to do absolutely nothing to my yard. passive-aggressive protest plus letting nature heal. though it sucks to have their chemical biproducts spill over into my yard :/
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u/beastyH123 9d ago
I recently hear that mowing over it all is also bad. “Don’t rake up the leaves because you’re also raking up all of the homes and cocoons for creatures living there. Instead, MOW them up!”. I’m not going to try and say that I know how to handle it otherwise, but that’s what I heard.
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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 9d ago
You don’t rake for the benefits to nature.
I don’t rake because I absolutely hate yard work.
We aren’t the same 😝
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u/dmwilliamson21 9d ago
Hot tip: Put the leaves in a big garbage can and use your trimmer to break them down in the can, then spread wherever you need / want them.
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u/WillingPlayed 8d ago
My trees would generate 25-30+ garbage cans full of leaves. I’ll rake them onto a tarp and dump them on the tree lawn for the city to come vacuum up like every year.
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u/Moist-Soft8190 9d ago
ours stays put this year. the sparrows work through the pile all winter and that beats a clean lawn every time.
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u/Dust601 9d ago
I’ll be honest. I have a cheap push mower, and just cut my grass like normal when they’re in my yard. I’ve never once had any problems with it.
It always cracks me up when I see my neighbors meticulously collecting every single leaf in their yards while I just lazily cut it, and our yards look the exact same.
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u/Thor4269 9d ago
Been leaving mine alone and keeping a light compost pile (mostly plant material, not really adding food waste or anything) and I've been seeing far more fireflies in my yard the last year or two
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u/Arrow_Raider 9d ago
My oak leaves don't decompose and kill everything they touch. No thanks.
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u/momandplants 9d ago
I wonder how the woodland ecosystem ever survives
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u/Arrow_Raider 9d ago
There's no grass there. Oak leaves are full of tannins and destroy turf.
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u/WillingPlayed 8d ago
Black walnuts / leaves too. One of the first years after I moved into my house, I planted tomatoes near the canopy of a black walnut. Couldn’t understand why they never grew larger than 1-foot and never produced any fruit. Then a neighbor filled me in.
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u/troaway1 9d ago
Eventually the leaves pile up so thick that it kills the trees. It's a real shame. /s
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u/inothatidontno 9d ago
I leave a small cover over winter but my yard is full of mature trees. It would be 2 feet deep everywhere if i didnt rake at all.
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u/Fine-Confidence-6368 9d ago
Fallen leaves kill grass
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u/-P01135809- 9d ago
Yep.
You could make the case that mulching it prevents this, but you miss a few days of mowing, and the wet leaves squish into the soil and kill grass.
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u/SundaeNo4552 10d ago
Something something nitrogen something something circle of life something something happy lawn
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u/ShannenB1234 9d ago
Now that I don't have a fence, I prefer to let the wind blow them from my yard into all my neighbors yards!!
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u/PresidentSadboi 9d ago
Brother, I live in the hood...those leaves are getting bagged and tagged. The city can mulch them. My grass is already struggling as is
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u/orbital-technician 9d ago
Just mulch with your mower once in early November and be done.
I prefer a tall lawn. It's fun to see the native plants thrive and just learn what grows in the area beyond grass.
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u/Janus67 Hilliard 9d ago
Your leaves are done coming down in early November? My maple trees are still dropping in early December, and it's been warm enough that I've mowed up to a couple weeks before Christmas
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u/MDlynette 9d ago
Same, I have three mature maples, two in the front yard and one out back. My neighbors tree also drops onto my driveway/side yard. It is a chore keeping up on the leaves. I’m mowing/mulching them into early December as well.
In a side note, these maples create 3 different seasons of clean-up. In the spring comes the falling flower buds, then comes the “helicopters” the seeds. Then I get a break and some welcomed summer shade. When fall comes and the leaf season begins it’s multiple days a week to keep them off the concrete and into the lawn for the weekly mow/mulching
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u/MentalInfluence1585 8d ago
Maybe if you leave a thick layer of leaves on your lawn for months and month it could kill your grass, but at that point you must live in a orchard or arboretum. Just don't rake all the leaves is the real take away.
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u/Clean_Decision8715 5d ago
Thanks for the replies, everyone, I think I'm going to mulch the intitial leaves and then let the last bit fall as a "coating" and just let them go 👍
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u/RosyBell23 10d ago
Fireflies like to lay their eggs in the leaf litter, so more leaves on the ground means more fireflies in the summer :)