Raking Leaves Again This Fall. Stop Right Now

Ryan Westward. Miller

Information technology's autumn and that means leaves are littering lawns around the country.

Time to take out the rake and bag upward them up, right? Incorrect.

Ecology experts say raking leaves and removing them from your belongings is bad not just for your lawn but for the planet as a whole.

Although people oftentimes rake fallen leaves and send them to a landfill to foreclose their lawns from existence smothered and to make yards look amend, in most cases, you're fine non moving them.

"Just leave them where they are and grind them upwardly," said John Sorochan, a professor of turfgrass scientific discipline at University of Tennessee.

Even so, if yous have a lot of trees dumping leaves or the piles brainstorm to mound up, Dan Sandor, a postdoctoral researcher of turfgrass science at University of Minnesota, advises mowing over the leaves with a mulching bract most once a week.

Hither are a few reasons why you shouldn't rake your leaves and other tips to care for your lawn this fall:

Leaves and yard waste accept up infinite in landfills

Co-ordinate to EPA data, yard trimmings, which include leaves, created about 35.2 million tons of waste product in 2017, which is virtually 13% of all municipal waste generation.

The majority of that – 24.four 1000000 tons – was composted or mulched, the EPA says, yet yet, 8.7 meg tons went to landfills, accounting for 6.ii% of allmunicipal waste material in landfills.

"The worst thing you tin do is put (leaves) in bags and send them to landfills," said David Mizejewski, a naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation.

Leaves take upward space and they too can interruption downwardly with other organic waste to create methane, a potent greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change, he added.

Leaving your leaves could make your lawn healthier — and relieve you money

Recollect you demand to spend money on expensive fertilizers to keep your grass healthy? Retrieve again, Mizejewski said.

"Leaves cover upward root systems, preserve soil moisture, suppress weeds and other plants. They also slowly intermission down and ... return (essential) nutrients to plants," Mizejewski said. "It's a perfect system. Nothing is wasted in nature."

Don't rake grass clippings, either:Why y'all should avoid raking grass clippings after mowing the lawn, and more mower taboos

"Information technology'southward gratis fertilizer," Sandor said.

Some leaves, including maples, do a great job of reducing weed seed germination while other species like honey locust add a lot of nitrogen to lawns, Sandor said.

The environs around y'all depends on your leaves

Butterflies and songbirds alike depend on foliage litter, co-ordinate to Mizejewski.

"Over wintertime months, a lot of butterflies and moths as pupa or caterpillar are in the leaf litter, and when you rake it upwards you are removing the whole population of collywobbles you would otherwise run into in your k," he said.

Without the insects in the leaf litter, you also gamble driving away birds that might have come up to your yard looking for food to feed their offspring in the spring.

That's specially concerning given a September 2019 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science which found that North America has lost nigh iii billion birds since 1970, Mizejewski said.

"Keeping some leaf litter can really do good these kinds of declining wildlife," Mizejewski said. "This is wildlife conservation on the scale of your backyard."

Sorochan, at University of Tennessee, said keeping leaves on your backyard as well has the added do good of reducing fertilizer runoff.

Algal blooms can kill wildlife and harm human wellness, and they oftentimes form when backlog fertilizer runs into waterways. Because leaving leaves on your lawn serves as a fertilizer, if no other fertilizers are added, information technology will reduce runoff, Sorochan said.

Blowing leaves into the street is also bad, said Minnesota'southward Sandor. Because leaves take so many nutrients in them, they can break down when they get into sewers and as well cause algal blooms in waterways, he said.

But y'all even so might demand to do some raking

While in most cases, your lawn will benefit if yous go along the leaves where they fall, some raking may be necessary, the experts concur.

Sandor said leaves and lawns are different shapes and sizes, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. If it looks like your mower won't be able to handle all the leaves or like your lawn is existence smothered, that'southward when yous may demand to rake them to thin it out, he says.

If y'all practise remove your leaves, the all-time thing to practice is cutting them upwards and drop them in a establish or flower bed or some other part of your lawn that doesn't go foliage cover, Mizejewski said.

That will provide a natural fertilizer and mulch for those parts of your yard. If you're worried the leaves will accident away (though they should exist fine), lightly water them, Mizejewski said.

If you don't accept a plant or flower bed or take too many leaves, start a compost bin, he and Sandor advise.

Some municipalities as well have compost programs, which allow you to send your leaves off and get mulch back, Mizejewski said, but composting at your firm is ameliorate so yous don't have the added pollution of trucks and off-site machines taking and processing the leaves.

"This is most taking baby steps for most people and getting to a maintenance on your yard and garden that is a little scrap more environmentally friendly and wild animals friendly," Mizejewski said.

Contributing: Mary Bowerman, U.s.a. TODAY. Follow U.s.a. TODAY'due south Ryan Miller on Twitter at @RyanW_Miller.

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Source: https://www.enterprisenews.com/story/news/environment/2020/10/06/raking-leaves-again-this-fall-stop-right-now/114503128/