First Wednesday Challenge: A Conversation About Leaves

 

It's the First Wednesday Taking Care of Wildlife In Our Gardens Challenge and I'm here to talk about leaves.

Leaves are miraculous and beautiful....In my part of the world it's golden leaf time. Elms, shagbark hickories, spicebushes, Eastern hop-hornbeam, witch hazels and maples are glowing. I love autumn.

I've known since I was a little kid that leaves were a lot of fun. Back then I loved walking through the leaves that had fallen on the sidewalks, they crunched and crackled when you stepped on them. Neighbors made great piles that were fun to jump into and later that day they burned them creating a huge bonfire. Honestly, that's a smell that takes me back a few years.

In middle school science I learned that the job of a leaf was to make food for the plant. But being a curious person, I wanted to see what an internet search would yield. Searching "the job of a leaf" yielded thousands of pages. Almost all start with this simple explanation: "The most important job of a leaf is to make food for the plant. They're responsible for turning sunlight into food."

They're especially beautiful in the fall.

A few pages into the search I found a source that expanded on that definition.

 "A leaf is considered one of the most important parts of a plant as it is a source of food for the plant itself and also for animals who feed on it."(source)

Wow! I loved reading that. Finally, a definition that acknowledged that an important job for leaves was not only feeding the tree, but also feeding animals.* By animals they meant insects or as E.O. Wilson defined them, the little things that run the world.

 Dr Wilson wrote a paper in 1987 hypothesizing what would happen if insects disappeared. He concluded that most flowering plants would disappear (because they’re pollinated by insects), the food web that supports amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc. would quickly collapse, and the biosphere (living part of the world) would rot due to the loss of insects that consume dead plant and animal matter.

Insects are still disappearing.

Title: Magical Garden

Unfortunately, we've done too good a job of eradicating bugs! We've armed homeowners with pesticides, we've hired folks to spray yards for mosquitoes (they kill all insects), we plant non native plants that aren't host plants for insect young, we've lost natural areas, and then every fall we pay lawn service contractors to haul away one of our most valuable ecological resources-fallen leaves.

Yes, fallen leaves are one of our most valuable resources for the health of our gardens. 

Leaves can:

• protect your plants’ roots from drying out or freezing
  
• suppress weeds
• preserve soil moisture
• decay into leaf mold which is a great soil amendment
  
• return nutrients to the soil 
• shelter seeds so they can bloom
• be part of a soft landing for insects
  
• btw, a thin layer on your lawn will not smother it, instead it can do all the things we've listed in this list for your lawn     
  

 And...you can still have fun with leaves. Build a brush shelter with your favorite little kid. Use branches, sticks and stems, and leaves to make brush piles that will shelter native wildlife. It's also okay to jump into a leaf pile.

Leaves are a significant part of a soft landing. "Soft landings are diverse native plantings under keystone trees (or any other regionally appropriate native tree). These plantings provide critical shelter and habitat for one or more life cycle stages of moths, butterflies, and beneficial insects such as bumble bees, fireflies, lacewings, and beetles. In addition to plants, soft landings also include leaf litter, duff, and plant debris. " (Heather Holm) Soft landings also provide critical shelter for toads, lizards and turtles and mammals.

soft landing for

I wish I could convince our neighbors that fallen leaves are valuable and not the enemy. Their leaf blower brigades have arrived and they're blowing all the leaves off their lawns and their foundation beds onto tarps that are emptied into trucks and hauled away.

They return weekly to wage a noisy and destructive war against every leaf and small twig that might have landed on the lawn. This war against nature is costly for the environment; the fertilized and manicured mono-cultural lawn is made even more valueless for wildlife and the ecosystem. There's nothing in a mono-cultural lawn for insects or birds to eat and they've eliminated all the leaves that could have been a part of the soft landing.

People argue that the leaves will smother their lawn and plantings? I have a bee friendly lawn and so far, it hasn't smothered my wildflowers, my sedges or my perennials. But, if that's a concern, then do what I do when leaves are too deep.

What do I do...I gently rake or kindly sweep the leaves that fall on my walkways and driveway into the garden beds. I relocate especially deep piles of leaves by gently raking them onto a tarp and moving them to a wilder part of the garden. But, most leaves stay where they fall. 

My shallow clay soil is richer and healthier from 35+ years of letting leaves stay where they fall. Decaying leaves have mulched my wildflowers, added organic matter to the soil, improved the soil structure, and provided nutrients for the microbial communities.  

And it doesn't cost a thing.

Let me leave you with this quote from the Xerces Society. I hope it helps you decide to let the leaves stay in your garden.

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.  It’s easy to see how important leaves really are to sustaining the natural web of life.(Xerces Society source)

xoxogail

*It wasn't until I fell in love with native wildflowers that I learned that insects have both a mutualistic (plants feed insects and insects pollinate plants) and evolutionary relationship with plants. "The entire food web is based on interactions between plants and organisms. Native plants feed a native insect population. This is an evolutionary relationship, and these relationships are not forged quickly. Some insects need certain plants. We lose species diversity when a species does not have the food it needs.” ( Kate Venturini Hardesty)

Take the Taking Care of Wildlife In Our Gardens Challenge

The first part of this challenge is to do something, even lots of things, each month that support the critters living in our gardens. Gardening with native wildflowers, shrubs and trees that make sense for our ecoregion is a good place to start or continue (as the case may be). Plants and their pollinators are a classic example of mutualism: they have coevolved through evolutionary time in a reciprocal beneficial relationship. This is also true for other critters that visit and live in our gardens. 

Activities that increase our knowledge of the natural world are equally as valuable. Helping others learn about nature is included. Golly gee whiz, there are so many things you can do. 

The second part of the challenge is to post about it somewhere: Your blog, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even your neighborhood listserve. Wouldn't an article in the local paper be a coup for nature! Why post it? Because positive publicity is needed to educate our friends, neighbors and communities about how important even the smallest changes we make as gardeners can be for pollinators, birds, insects and mammals, including humans, that live all around us. 

Why now? My neighborhood is changing. Yours might be, too. Every day an older home along with many (if not all) of the mature oak, hickory, maple, Eastern cedar and hackberry trees are cut down. Insects, birds, even mammals lose their home site and food supplies when we lose trees. During construction soil is compacted by bulldozers, trucks and piles of debris cause runoff; surface runoff that can carry pollution to streams and rivers. It's important that our neighbors and our community have information about how important trees are to our ecosystem. Trees contribute to their environment by providing oxygen, improving air quality, climate amelioration, conserving water, preserving soil, and supporting wildlife.

In place of the "bee lawns" composed of Claytonia, Salvia lyrata, Ruellia humilis, fleabane, Western Daisy, Violets, self-heal, clovers, native grasses (in my neighborhood it's poverty oat grass) and sedges, they're being sodded with non-native grasses. These monoculture turf lawns contribute nothing environmentally. Here's what we lose when our diverse lawns are replaced with pristine turf grass:

• Gone are the lightening bugs.
• Gone are the ground dwelling/nesting native bees.
• Gone is the habitat for insects, spiders and other critters. 
• Gone is plant diversity. 
• Gone are trees that provided for hundreds of moths, butterflies and other insects.
• Gone are the nesting sites for woodpeckers, hummingbirds, Chickadees and other birds. 
• Gone is a healthy foodweb.
  

 It breaks my heart. 

We can't stop the progmess, but, maybe we can make a lot of educational noise and help our new neighbors see the value in providing for critters and ultimately helping the environment.

A gardener can hope! 

xoxoGail

Here's an incomplete list of things you might consider doing or changing in your garden, and things you can do for and/or in your community. But don't limit yourself to my list, make your own list or check out the internet for ideas.

 

Looking for ways to get involved go here for a list of environmental advocacy groups.

Buy the best wildflower, butterfly and bird id books for your state.

Read nature books to your children and grandchildren. Buy them nature books.

Get in the garden with your children and grandchildren. 

Give nature books as baby shower gifts (Nature books for infants and toddlers)

Shrink your lawn and make your planting beds larger.

Plant your favorite native perennials and shrubs. Leave them standing after they've gone to seed to continue to provide for wildlife. What you plant in your yard makes a difference to wildlife. I garden for wildlife so every tree, shrub and plant is chosen with wildlife in mind.

 

Plant more natives and then consider planting even more. "A typical suburban landscape contains only 20-30% native plant species. Try reversing that trend in your own landscape by using 70-80% native species." (source) 

Plant for bloom from late spring to early winter. Bees are most active from February to November (longer in mild climates) late winter blooming Hamamelis vernalis and the earliest spring ephemerals (like the toothworts, hepaticas, spring beauties, and False rue-anemeone) are perfect plants for a variety of pollinators.

Commit to never, ever, ever, ever using pesticides in the garden.

Stay away from native plant hybrids and cultivars that are double flowered. They are sterile and have no pollen or nectar for insects and no seeds for the birds. If possible plant “true open-pollinated native wildflowers”

If you want to garden for wildlife and pollinators, don't let lack of space stop you! Plant your favorite wildflowers in large containers. You just might have the prairie or woodland garden you've always wanted...in a pot!
 
Create a water feature. Provide water year round that is accessible to birds, bees and other critters.

Make a rain garden in low spots to collect and mitigate runoff.

Show some soil! Our native ground nesting bees nest in bare soil, so don't mulch every square inch of your garden. 

Get rid of the plastic weed barriers in your garden, it's not good for anything.

Invite bugs into your garden. Plant annuals that attract beneficial bugs.

 

Learn to tolerate damaged plants. Imperfection is the new perfect.

Don't be in a rush to clean up the fall garden. Leave plant stalks and seed heads standing all winter. Leave those fallen leaves or as many as you can tolerate! Insects over winter in the fallen and decaying leaves. Leave a layer of leaves as a soft landing material under trees for moths and butterflies to over winter. Many caterpillars drop to the ground from the trees in the fall and need a soft landing site and a place to live over the winter.

Allow a fallen tree to remain in the garden. Limbs on the ground are a perfect shelter for small animals such as rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels and a habitat for beetles, termites and other insects.

Make a brush pile. Stack fallen brush, cut tree limbs, broken pots for ground beetles. Ground beetles are excellent at eating "bad bugs". Bugs are also good bird, toad and small critter food. 

Rethink what you consider a pest. Lots of good bugs eat aphids. Spiders are important predators and they're great bird food!

Add nesting boxes for birds. 

Turn off your yard up-lighting, eave lights and porch lights after 11pm. This is important for nocturnal critters including mammals, snakes, insects, bats, birds (especially during migration). (Birdcast suggestions)

Plant shrubs and small trees that provide berries and nuts.

Keep a nature journal: You can observe visitors to your water feature, make note of when they visit. Notice which flowers attract the most pollinators and which ones are just pretty faces. 

Join your state native plant society (Tennessee Native Plant Society)

Join WildOnes even if there's no local group you can join the national organization.  (Middle Tennessee WildOnes)

Support your local native plant sellers. (GroWild in middle Tennessee, Overhill Gardens in east Tennessee,  Resource Guide TN Native Plant Society)

Encourage your local garden clubs to offer native plant talks.

If your garden club has a plant sale encourage them to sell more native plants.

Get trained as a naturalist (Tennessee Naturalist Program. Almost every state has their own Master Naturalist training program

Take an online course on tree, fungi and wildflower id. 

Take an online course on designing with native plants.

Take a walk in your neighborhood and observe nature. To quote Joanna Brichetto in Sidewalk Nature "Look Around. Nature is here, is us, our driveways, our baseboards, parks, and parking lots."

Read! There are hundreds of books on gardening for wildlife, the environment, and rewilding our world. There are delightful blogs with wonderful and informative articles.

If you are already gardening with wildlife in mind then add a few signs that help educate your neighbors. (Xerces Society, Pollinator Partnership)

Join the Xerces Society.

Set up an information station where neighbors can pick up brochures about your garden and other info. 

Get certified (National Wildlife Federation, check to see what your state offers)

Support trees by joining the effort to make sure developers don't remove more trees than are necessary for their project. Work to make sure there are tree removal permits and that they are actually enforced in your community.

 

 

 

 

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.