Maryland Grows

With the fall season we are starting to see a lot of articles talking about the massive ecological and soil quality benefits of leaving leaves, stems, and sticks in our green spaces. As a biologist, I understand why doing so is indeed the right thing to do, but I often face pushback on this topic from people I mention this to through my Extension work or just in my neighborhood. There are of course many barriers to adopting such practices that I have heard people mention, but one that comes up often is the one that involves social or peer pressure. In other words, how to adopt this without making your neighbors mad? In today’s blog, I want to give some pointers to avoid conflict with (and maybe even convince) neighbors who may be less convinced than you on these practices.

Some fall practices that we know are good for biodiversity and your soil

I do not want to talk yet again in depth about these practices (you can read more about it in these other articles if you want to know more):

• How to Protect Pollinators in the Fall
• A Brilliant Fall Banquet for Birds, Butterflies, and Bees
• We Are Still Alive! How to Protect Pollinators in the Slow Season
• The Value of a Pile of Sticks in Your Yard or Garden

But I want to just quickly state some of them, so you know what I am referring to throughout this article. I feel that there are three major types of practices that can be adopted for protecting pollinators and other insects during the winter: leaving the fallen leaves on the ground, not pruning certain pithy stems to the ground until the Spring, and making branches and stick piles in sections of your green spaces.

For all these practices, common sense should be used when deciding whether to adopt them or not (e.g., if you are in a fire-prone area, perhaps making huge wood piles is not a good idea), remembering that these are indeed all practices that have been shown to improve biodiversity in our green spaces.

How to avoid “leaving the leaves” look messy?

So, you want to participate in the ”leave the leaves” action, but you still want to make clear that somebody is actually taking care of it. What to do?

• If you have the option to ignore others’ opinions, you can just leave the leaves where they fell and go on with your life. 😊 That said, this may or not apply to most people.
• You can pick certain areas of your green space to leave the leaves, but rake other areas. Perhaps you want to have the areas that are less exposed to people’s eyes be those selected for leaving the leaves. This will show that your leaving the leaves is purposeful and not just a lack of care.
• If you have trees on your space, you can also decide to pile up the leaves around trees. This will provide shelter to insects and other small critters, provide mulch for the tree, and sign active care of your space.
• A problem I sometimes hear about is leaves blowing over to another person’s yard or space. To avoid this, you can use plants to line/fence your green space. These plantings will have the positive effects of both allowing your leaves to stay on the ground, while minimizing “spill overs”.
• Explain what you are doing. You can tell your neighbors about what is going on, and even put a sign up to clarify what is happening (if you want to go “fancy”, the Xerces Society has a neat one).
• A thing NOT to do if you would like to retain arthropod diversity but also make the leaves look “tidier”, is mow them over. This has been shown to kill the insects that were preparing to overwinter in them. ☹

How to leave the stems without issues

Another practice shown to support stem-nesting insects (including several bees) is not trimming pithy stems all the way down during the fall.

• If you have the option to ignore others’ opinions, you can just leave the stems and go on with your life. 😊 That said, this may or not apply to most people.
• As for the leaves, you can select sections of your space where you decide to implement this. An extension of this idea is that perhaps you can reconsider where your plantings are, so you have the pithy plants (e.g., brambles) in areas that you know are not going to be looked at all the time.
• You can also decide to trim the plants down to some extent (about 2-3 ft from the ground) but not completely. This will show that you are taking care of the plants, but that you actively decided not to trim them all the way down.
• Letting people know what is going on is always a good thing. You can add a little sign to tell people about what you’re doing and why, and/or you can talk to your neighbors to let them know.

Making a pile of sticks and wood without scaring people

Making stick piles is a very good practice to retain biodiversity in green spaces. That said, people can feel like a pile can look untidy, and even some cities may have some regulations about what type of pile may be OK versus not.

• If you have the option to ignore others’ opinions, you can just make a pile and go on with your life. 😊 That said, this may or not apply to most people.
• You can restrict the pile clearly to a specific area of your space, and make clear that you have actively decided to make one and are taking care of it. This is to sign that this is not just some brush you left around after you trimmed some plants, but actually a specific green space feature you are trying to build.
• You can make it look cute. Check out this other blog, A Brilliant Fall Banquet, where some ideas are given.
• Information, information, information. Let people know what this is and why you are doing it. And also, if there are some afraid of snakes or fires, make sure that the area you live is not known for its high fire or venomous snake danger (you can inform yourself about these topics online or ask an Extension agent; e.g., Venomous Snakes of Maryland.

By Anahí Espíndola, Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park. See more posts by Anahí.

Anahí also writes an Extension Blog in Spanish! Check it out here, extensionesp.umd.edu, and please share and spread the word to your Spanish-speaking friends and colleagues in Maryland. ¡Bienvenidos a Extensión en Español!