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They're called leaves for a reason. (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 day ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

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.

[-] normalexit@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago

How do I know when the queens are out?

[-] FoD@startrek.website 1 points 1 hour ago

Oh, you'll know.

[-] pseudo@jlai.lu 3 points 4 hours ago

!nolawns@slrpnk.net vibes.

[-] IDrawPoorly@lemm.ee 3 points 5 hours ago

wuht

[-] Lennnny@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago

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.

[-] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 56 points 19 hours ago

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.

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.world 1 points 49 minutes ago

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!

[-] UnfairUtan@lemmy.world 15 points 19 hours ago

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.

[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 10 points 9 hours ago

I think that they're just railing against the smoke show that would have us believe that our individual actions are more to blame than industry as a whole. You can recycle, you can drive a electric car, you can even generate your electricity and store it locally in a battery and not even use the grid but even if we all did that without change to heavy industry we are still screwed.

One small example of this is how big tobacco and big oil have used exactly the same tactics to distract us from what's really going on and protect their profits regardless of the harm to us as a species.

Would you like to know more? https://www.eenews.net/articles/big-tobacco-had-to-pay-206b-is-big-oil-next/

[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 10 points 18 hours ago

For insects, pristine lawns are a huge problem. This isn't quite comparable.

[-] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

I always mulch mine with my mower. Only bugs that might be in them is scorpions, grubs, ants, or the odd snake sometimes

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 9 points 20 hours ago

Brings nutrients into your soil so you have a healthier lawn

[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago

That has not been my experience. The leaves wreck the ph of the soil and block light from letting grass grow.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 hours ago

Not much grass growing when it’s -20 out but you might have too many leaves so they don’t decompose fast enough during your winter

[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago

Yeah that's definitely the issue here. There's still a layer of wet leaves by the time the grass wants to start growing in the spring.

[-] stringere@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago

Let those leaves kill the grass and replace it with moss, clover, walkable thyme, native grasses, or any number of more interesting ground covers. I'm working towards a no-mow lawn. It's fun finding creative ways to thwart a pesky city ordinance: "A minimum of fifty percent (50%) of all yard areas shall be comprised of turf grass".

[-] tacosplease@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

The layer of leaves kills that stuff too, right?

[-] stringere@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Probably. With a clover lawn you'll probably need to reseed annually anyway. $4 per 1lb bag covers ~10,000 sq ft so not really a bank buster there, just a little work in the fall and spring.

[-] Toes@ani.social 50 points 1 day ago

I'm pretty sure if I didn't do any yard work by May I'd have the city repossessing my home.

[-] lseif@sopuli.xyz 3 points 5 hours ago

absolutely insane law there.

[-] stringere@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago

You could try a no-mow lawnternative: https://www.thespruce.com/lawn-alternatives-8657762

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago

Start a movement to stop the city from forcing people to cut their yards. It creates smog, kills the insects we need for food, damages the native plants, wastes money, and looks ugly. Natural yards are awesome.

[-] ilhamagh@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

How does cutting a yard contribute to smog? The Lawnmower?

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago

Yep, all mowers are not required to have any capture equipment on them. They literally just exhaust unspent fuel and exhaust right out into the atmosphere.

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 100 points 1 day ago

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

[-] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 day ago

Fireflies were spectacular this year.

In the front yard I let the wind take whatever leaves it takes. In the back I rake a path to the gates. Those leaves get put in a large open bin along my fence which makes nice soil in a year of so. Everything else is as nature intended.

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

I’m hoping I can stem the collapse. I saw three fireflies this past summer. Which is a 3x improvement over the summer before that.

But coming from a place where I could walk through the woods on a dark night just by the light of fireflies it hurts my soul to be somewhere so sterile.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

We don't get fireflies where I am, and one of my brothers took his kids on a trip to the Statesian South, his motivation being so they could see fireflies before they go extinct. I kind of wish I'd tagged along.

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 26 points 1 day ago

And then they complain that their fruit garden isn't working.

[-] TheFogan@programming.dev 116 points 1 day ago

Too bad HOAs are far more concerned with making sure everything looks plain and perfect to the 70 year old humans walking on the street rather than giving any craps about wildlife.

[-] Tower@lemm.ee 17 points 1 day ago

In a previous house I rented, the HOA ladies would drive around the neighborhood roughly 3 times a week. There were less than 200 homes in the whole subdivision. Even if you walked slowly, it would only take an hour to walk the whole thing, but instead they drove.

[-] Hawke@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago

You think anybody is walking on the street in the US?

[-] nBodyProblem@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Depends where you live. I am in Denver and only use the car a few times a week, mostly during ski season.

The rest of the time I walk.

[-] deadcream@sopuli.xyz 34 points 1 day ago

I'm not American but my understanding is that many of those "suburban" residential blocks have sidewalks and you can walk around withing the confinement of your block. However blocks are isolated from each other and you need a car to go somewhere else.

[-] oxideseven@lemmy.ca 4 points 14 hours ago

There are places in the US, that when you buy a house or property, you are given a choice. You can build a sidewalk for it yourself, or you can pay the city/county for a sidewalk.

The thing is, if you pay the city/county for the sidewalk, they stipulate that they can build that sidewalk where ever they want. This does not have to include in front of, or anywhere near, your house

The US is a very strange place.

[-] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago

My block of suburbia growing up only had a sidewalk for the last 2 houses on it, everyone else didn't get one

So that's nice

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 4 points 20 hours ago

I'm increasingly seeing neighborhoods where there's only a sidewalk on one side of the street...and then it terminates for no reason...and then it starts again...

It's so bizarre.

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[-] noxy@yiffit.net 12 points 1 day ago

I'll (electrically) blow leaves off of walkways, but the vast majority of them stay put. Fuck a fucking lawn.

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 5 points 20 hours ago

Fuck a fucking lawn.

Is that kinda like a putting green but for...?

[-] stringere@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

I thought that's what couches were for...?

[-] lseif@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago

every lawn is a f-cking lawn if u f-ck lawns

[-] protist@mander.xyz 27 points 1 day ago

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

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[-] JoYo@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 day ago

until it snows, then it becomes a slip-n-slide for all.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

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.

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