Leaving The Leaves

Wooden sign reads 'Maple Grove Loop' in front of woodland with yellow fall foliage

From webinar What Is Wild and Why It Matters by Rick Darke(1)

"I consider buying mulch to be a failure of horticulture"

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According to the EPA, Americans dispose of over 35 million tons of yard waste every year(2). I know my neighbors are certainly busy gathering up the leaves into their brown paper bags. It always strikes me as odd, especially in a neighborhood where almost everyone's house backs up to the woods. Our compulsion to clean the outdoors sweeps up the stuff of life.

The garden bed I created on a steep slope in my backyard is my solution for leaves at the moment. By killing the grass there, I don't have to mow on a dangerous slope. And by creating a mulched garden bed, I can use it as a catch-all for leaves, grass clippings, and sticks. This year, I used my small electric leaf blower to reduce the leaf cover on the grass, and blew most of those leaves onto the new bed. It's a way to keep the majority of the grass alive (for now!) that disturbs the invertebrates living in leaf litter less.

The caterpillars are in there now, spiky little tubes of mush, hibernating under a layer of crunchy gold. They haven't been chopped up by lawnmower blades, stuffed into a bag bound for the landfill, or sizzled on a smoky fire. Hopefully they'll crawl out next spring and transform into a Great Spangled Frittilary or Luna Moth(3). Most people can appreciate the natural beauty of a butterfly, but maybe the leap to loving their proto-form is too far.

The upshot is that I've spent less time and no money for the privilege of seeing a butterfly next summer. I find these moments where I can opt out of seemingly ubiquitous ecocide precious. In an arms race society I'm choosing to do something gentle, cringe as it may be.

The question, of course, is how to connect my habitat fragment to the millions of other shattered pieces of our environment. Following National Wildlife Federation or Xerces Society landscaping guidelines is a pretty niche pursuit, and it feels like my country is drowning to deeply in the omnicrisis to advocate for another problem on our plate. But it's simplicity and laziness are pretty undeniable. As Masanobu Fukuoka wrote of farming (I disagree with him on many points but this one stands), 'I was aiming at a pleasant, natural way of farming which results in making the work easier instead of harder.(4)"

For now, I guess, our collective ecological consciousness is waiting, like a caterpillar under leaves, for some spring to arrive.

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1. Rick Darke. 2026, April 28. What is wild and why it matters [webinar]. Homegrown National Park and Wild Ones. homegrownnationalpark.org

2. Yard Trimmings: Material-Specific Data. 2018. In EPA.gov. Retrieved April 28, 2026, from https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/yard-trimmings-material-specific-data

3. Leave the Leaves: Winter Habitat Protection. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Retrieved April 28, 2026, from https://xerces.org/leave-the-leaves.

4. Fukuoka, Masanobu. (1978/2009) The One Straw Revolution. The New York Review of Books. p 15.