This Fall, Let's Stop Fighting the War on Leaves

“Every autumn, as leaves turn from green to auburn and float to the ground, we turn into a nation of outdoor undertakers. There will be raking, and pile-making, and paper sacks stuffed with leaves, arrayed along curbs like defensive bulwarks. Lawn care crews (derisively known by serious gardeners as "mow, blow and go" for the mostly perfunctory services they perform) will descend on suburban streets, and leaf blowers will roar from coast to coast, satisfying all who were unable to fulfill their dream of living right next to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

 

I first encountered this strange ritual as a child, shortly after my family arrived in Connecticut from the Soviet Union in 1989. America's war on leaves made no sense to me then, and it makes no sense to me now. The National Wildlife Federation calculates that we throw away 35 million tons of yard waste a year, which is apparently enough to fill the Empire State Building 135 times. 

 

And it isn't waste at all, but rather, an "incredibly valuable habitat for wildlife and nutrients for plants."

 

Healthy soil requires "moisture and heat and warmth," says Annabel Renwick, a native plant curator at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University.

 

 Leaves provide all three, whether you leave them where they fall, scatter them in perennial beds or put them in a compost pile. Fallen leaves also create an ecosystem for other species, Renwick explains: "You've got beetles in there. You have worms coming up from the ground. Moths lay their eggs in the leaves." The insect cornucopia attracts birds, too.

 

Why do so many of us spend money and effort sweeping all that fecundity away? "I think it's habit," Renwick said. For many people, a lawn with leaves unblown or unraked offends their sensibilities. It suggests a household that lacks rules, or plays by rules other than the ones most of us have been inculcated with.

 

I've come to think that inertia is among the most pernicious forces that can work on a society or an individual. We keep doing the same thing because the cost -- emotional, cultural -- of doing something new is simply too high. We sink into habits we never really meant to adopt, habits we know are not making us happy or healthy.

 

Environmentalists have tried to rebrand October as "Leave the Leaves Month." What, it wasn't on your shared family Google Calendar? It's pretty clear that the campaign needs a celebrity spokesperson. But the basic message is compelling: Let nature do its thing. It has been around for much longer than you and has a pretty good track record.

 

Best of all, nature does its thing without recourse to leaf blowers, which can release pollutants and damage hearing. Many municipalities across the country have banned two-stroke leaf blowers -- so named because a piston in a leaf blower engine makes two movements instead of four, as in a car.

 

"Touch grass" has become a common refrain in the digital age, a reminder to the terminally online to go outside and experience the real world, if only briefly. Whatever else leaves are, they are real. As they change color, wither and flame out, they remind us of the beauty of life, and of life's impermanence.

 

A drop of existential awareness may even make us a more humane society. After all, we too are leaves, facing inevitable autumn. Do you really want to spend your time on Earth arguing with trolls online? A carpet of leaves teems with color and life, an ocean of reds and browns. Don't worry about the spiders. Dive right in.

 

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Alexander Nazaryan writes about culture, science and politics.” [1]

 

1. REVIEW --- This Fall, Let's Stop Fighting the War on Leaves. Nazaryan, Alexander.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 18 Oct 2025: C5.