Leaves
On my journey of spiritual landscaping, I asked myself ‘What should I do with all the leaves?’ I feel a genuine and profound sense of spiritual connection with my yard. I love my yard and I want to do anything possible to make it as biodiverse and happy as possible!
For millions of years, the creatures of our land have evolved to depend on fallen leaves. Wooly Bear Caterpillars and Bumblebee queens (pictures taken by meeee), among many other super cute and beneficial insects need leaf litter to survive the winter. Many butterflies and moths lay their eggs underneath leaves. Squirrels and chipmunks need leaves to create warm homes. Entire communities of mushrooms and micro-organisms all need leaves to thrive. The practice of obsessively removing every last leaf from our yards is only a few centuries old and it severely hurts our ecosystem especially when it is copied and pasted across a majority of yards in the US.
Believe it or not, it is recommended to leave the leaves! And this isn’t just my belief, every university, environmental group and even the USDA recommends reducing lawns of grass and having leaf litter remain over the wintertime.
One of the best thing you can do for the ecosystem is to let leaves and logs just relax in your yard during the winter. In collaboration with my mother, we have been exploring ways to devote portions of the yard to unmulched in tact leaves. This is because many types of butterflies and moths lay their eggs underneath leaves, so keeping them intact helps them out. Keeping leaves in your yard doesn't have took bad either! Here are a few things my Mother and I have tried.
- A dress of leaves around trees
One way I preserve the leaves is by placing a dress of them around my trees. I place rocks at the perimeter to contain the leaves and provide a real neat and pretty look. If I had grass growing around this tree, the leaves would suffocate the grass. However, instead of grass, I have a vastly beautiful, fragrant and lush spread of 'Lily of the Valley' which don't mind leaves on top of them during the winter.
2. A thick bed of leaves on my vegetable garden
I put a thick bed of leaves on top of my vegetable garden which inhibits the growth of weeds in early spring. Sometimes I mulch these leaves once last frost is gone, allowing the overwintering insects to have an opportunity to move on. Most often, I keep all of the leaves and just dig holes where I want to plant vegetables. I am still experimenting with this method.
In the back of the plot (seen during summertime), I let indigenous plants such as blackberries, black raspberries, pokeweed, asters and goldenrod grow which are beneficial to the ecosystem. Unlike grass which would die underneath the leaves, these wildflowers and plants have evolved to deal with leaves. This is another advantage of planting native wildflowers and plants, because you can let leaves cover them during the wintertime.
3. Composting the leaves
Another idea that my mother and I have been exploring is composting! Instead of throwing away all of that precious biomass, the process of composting naturally creates very rich fertilized soil. Spiritually, it feels good knowing that I am not bringing fertilizer from outside and that the cycles of life and death are churning righ in front of me! I love the feeling that leaves are not a waste but rather a sacred gift! While some people find it unappealing, next to my house, I have my composting bins which I call the Divine Intestines of my Backyard of Biodiversity. At the simplest level, we have a lazy pile of leaves that are contained by branches (left). Here we will also dump our vegetable waste. During the summer, sometimes we will turn it to accelerate the rate of decomposition. Within it, is a universe of detritivores and micro-organisms! A much more appealing composting structure can be seen in the right picture. This structure was made from pallets, all thanks to Stephen K. We fill it with leaves and also all of our vegetable food waste. It creates a gorgeous rich compost that anyone would fall in love with.
4. Mulching the leaves
Instead of raking leaves and then throwing them away, I just mulch them, which returns much of the nutrients and biomass back to my yard! I use an electric lawnmower and can easily get several wheelbarrows full of mulched leaves. They look sooooo good! They are worth their weight in gold! It fills me spiritually knowing that nothing in my yard is considered waste and instead everything is part of a divine circle of energy. I love my leaves so much and would never throw them away! I like sprinkling this all over my property and the mulched leaves won't even kill your grass! In large amounts, they look great around trees and underneath bushes...anywhere you would put the store-bought chemical-laced mulch. Any left over leaf-mulch, I put into my compost areas...the mulching accelerates the process of compost.
Final Exam <3
Here is an example of a more manicured look that summarizes much of what I shared in this series. There are loose leaves around the tree to the left and the bush upfront. This preserves butterfly and moth eggs and gives insects, like the bumble bee queens, a place to overwinter. I place these leaves on top of non-grass (often indigenous) plants that are dormant during the winter and sprout in the spring. I contain and beautify the leaves by surrounding them with rocks. In the center is a path lined with decomposing logs which makes it look pretty but also provides habitats for insects. The path is covered with mulched leaves which makes it looks really great. Everytime I look at my yard, I feel a deep spiritual union with the Earth. It feels good knowing that nothing is waste and that everything is part of the larger divine cycles of Energy and Nature. It feels really good knowing that I am providing places for creatures to survive the harsh winter because I love seeing a biodiverse wonderland in the spring and summer! This act of thinking deeply how to care for my Earth and all of its creatures, makes me cherish these precious moments of life.
