Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.

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108

Trust in nature – and stop raking up your garden leaves (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by Jho@beehaw.org to c/greenspace@beehaw.org

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Some choice quotes from the article:

[S]pent leaves that flutter to the ground aren’t a waste product. They are rich in carbon and play an essential role for the tree and the ecology it supports.

The leaves act as a physical barrier for soil, keeping it and its many microbes insulated, and also for the tree roots, as the wet mats of autumn leaves shelter the fragile top layer from the drying winds.

Many, many things live in these dead leaf layers: caterpillars of moths and butterflies, their chrysalises, beetles, centipedes, springtails, woodlice and spiders … and doesn’t the blackbird know it, rustling through the leaves?

No one loves wet autumn leaves more than earthworms, though. Sensing one of their favourite things, they start to work on incorporating them into the soil. Earthworms line their homes with autumn leaves, using them for bedding and then, because they are good housekeepers, they eat them as they break down.

Leave the leaves be: they are not a mess, a waste or a hindrance – they are life and vital with it.

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[–] alwaysconfused@lemmy.ca 21 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I've never seen anyone rake s forest floor and the forest seems to be just fine. Nature has been doing it's own thing for a couple years and seemed to have figured out what works.

Us humans could learn so much about the world if we spent more time observing it in action. Instead we spent our time bending it to our will. Disrupting beautiful complexity while blissfully unaware of future consequences. Replacing nature with unadaptable machines that are high in maintenance. Machines which are prone to wearing out and breaking down. Replacing nature with our own complexity that doesn't break down as nicely as a leaf or branch.

Nature in action is beautiful in it's own right. No one should be judged for spending their precious time on this world observing nature. It's a wonderfully complex and adaptive machine with many moving parts and doesn't require any synthetic lube to run.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Most people aren't trying to make their back yard into a forest though.

[–] alwaysconfused@lemmy.ca 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't believe I was advocating for everyone to grow a forest on their property.

Personally, I'd love nothing more to have a forest garden in my backyard since it's been brought up.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 5 points 11 months ago

Personally, I'd love nothing more to have a forest garden in my backyard since it's been brought up.

Martin Crawford, Dave Jacke, and Eric Toensmeier have said that forest gardens are any garden of three or more "layers"/elements planted in such a way as to function like natural forests. It's definitely worth pursuing in whatever scale you achieve

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