![]() ![]() If you must keep your lawn clear of leaves-try opting for raking or using a leaf vacuum to capture whole leaves, rather than shredding them with a mower and make a leaf pile in a corner of your yard. While this would be too much of a good thing for turf grass to handle-research has shown that lawns actually benefit from a thin layer of leaves, and the rest can be piled up around ornamental trees, shrubs, and perennials to no ill effect. ![]() To mimic the natural ecosystem an animal needs, a layer of leaves needs to be at least a couple of inches thick. This disproportionate ratio of lawn to garden is the main reason we rake, mow, and blow. Leaves and LawnĪccording to a 2005 NASA estimate, there are around 40 million acres of lawn in the continental United States-making turf grass the single largest “crop” we grow. It’s easy to see how important leaves really are to sustaining the natural web of life. There are so many animals that live in leaves: spiders, snails, worms, beetles, millipedes, mites, and more-that support the chipmunks, turtles, birds, and amphibians that rely on these insects for food. An extra thick layer of leaves is welcome protection from the elements. At the end of summer, mated queen bumble bees burrow only an inch or two into the earth to hibernate for winter. The red-banded hairstreak is one of many butterflies that depend upon leaf litter as part of their life-cycle.īeyond butterflies, bumble bees also rely on leaf litter for protection. Luna moths and swallowtail butterflies disguise their cocoons and chrysalis as dried leaves, blending in with the “real” leaves. Red-banded hairstreaks lay their eggs on fallen oak leaves, which become the first food of the caterpillars when they emerge. Great spangled fritillary and wooly bear caterpillars tuck themselves into a pile of leaves for protection from cold weather and predators. In all but the warmest climates, these butterflies use leaf litter for winter cover. In fact, the vast majority of butterflies and moths overwinter in the landscape as an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, or adult. While monarch migration is a well-known phenomenon, it’s not the norm when it comes to butterflies. That’s why this year-and every year-we are making the case for leaving the leaves and offering input on what to do with them. It may be habitual, a matter of social conditioning, or a holdover of outdated gardening practices from yesteryear-but for whatever reason, we just can’t seem to help ourselves from wanting to tidy up the garden at the end of the season-raking, mowing, and blowing away a bit of nature that is essential to the survival of moths, butterflies, snails, spiders, and dozens of arthropods. Retrieve a full-size image suitable for printing from the Xerces website. ![]()
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