I’ve decided to leave the leaves on my yard and I swear my neighbors are mowing and leaf blowing twice as much just to spite me.
IDGAF. I’d rather have fireflies and bumblebees than human neighbors
They're called leaves for a reason.
Submitted 19 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/adcf4f70-76d6-414c-9713-cbfaa83dce27.png
Comments
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 16 hours ago
And then they complain that their fruit garden isn’t working.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
Fireflies were spectacular this year.
In the front yard I let the wind take whatever leaves it takes. In the back I rake a path to the gates. Those leaves get put in a large open bin along my fence which makes nice soil in a year of so. Everything else is as nature intended.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’m hoping I can stem the collapse. I saw three fireflies this past summer. Which is a 3x improvement over the summer before that.
But coming from a place where I could walk through the woods on a dark night just by the light of fireflies it hurts my soul to be somewhere so sterile.
TheFogan@programming.dev 19 hours ago
Too bad HOAs are far more concerned with making sure everything looks plain and perfect to the 70 year old humans walking on the street rather than giving any craps about wildlife.
Hawke@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You think anybody is walking on the street in the US?
deadcream@sopuli.xyz 18 hours ago
I’m not American but my understanding is that many of those “suburban” residential blocks have sidewalks and you can walk around withing the confinement of your block. However blocks are isolated from each other and you need a car to go somewhere else.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 16 hours ago
America build the suburbs as a big fake playground where you can walk your dog.
thejml@lemm.ee 18 hours ago
Absolutely. There’s a lot in my neighborhood… And it’s annoying when there’s a perfectly good sidewalk right there.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 18 hours ago
Plenty of them do. And I hate it. They need to be on the sidewalk, not the street.
noxy@yiffit.net 9 hours ago
You think otherwise?
Tower@lemm.ee 13 hours ago
In a previous house I rented, the HOA ladies would drive around the neighborhood roughly 3 times a week. There were less than 200 homes in the whole subdivision. Even if you walked slowly, it would only take an hour to walk the whole thing, but instead they drove.
kboy101222@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Yeah, quite a few
Tower@lemm.ee 13 hours ago
In a previous house I rented, the HOA ladies would drive around the neighborhood roughly 3 times a week. There were less than 200 homes in the whole subdivision. Even if you walked slowly, it would only take an hour to walk the whole thing, but instead they drove.
zea_64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 hours ago
Don’t worry, they’re also hostile to humans under the age of 70
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Brings nutrients into your soil so you have a healthier lawn
Toes@ani.social 14 hours ago
I’m pretty sure if I didn’t do any yard work by May I’d have the city repossessing my home.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Start a movement to stop the city from forcing people to cut their yards. It creates smog, kills the insects we need for food, damages the native plants, wastes money, and looks ugly. Natural yards are awesome.
ilhamagh@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
How does cutting a yard contribute to smog? The Lawnmower?
noxy@yiffit.net 9 hours ago
I’ll (electrically) blow leaves off of walkways, but the vast majority of them stay put. Fuck a fucking lawn.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 5 hours ago
Fuck a fucking lawn.
Is that kinda like a putting green but for…?
protist@mander.xyz 17 hours ago
I don’t view this as a “pick up the leaves or not” false choice. I leave the leaves in some areas and mow over/pick them up in others. They’re literally free mulch and compost
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
If you leave them all in place they all turn into free mulch and compost anyway. And you avoid using the fossil fuels to power the mower you don’t need in the first place.
protist@mander.xyz 11 hours ago
I have a battery powered mower and utility has done a pretty good job of incorporating renewables into their mix
gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
That’s probably the least efficient way to mulch that stuff, don’t just leave it out like that
And you avoid using the fossil fuels to power the mower you don’t need in the first place
Ah, should we all be using the push powered ones, then, cuz those are fucking terrible. Not having grass is nice for those who don’t live where it’s a legal requirement, but that’s out for many people, and you do have to cut it or you’ll get a different law visit instead
SupraMario@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Go to a farm, ask for stall muckings…free compost.
chuymatt@startrek.website 8 hours ago
You will want to be sure to sift them a little, as there will be a lot of stones in them, in my experience.
JoYo@lemmy.ml 16 hours ago
until it snows, then it becomes a slip-n-slide for all.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
our yard and sidewalks / pavement becomes slime slick if they’re left around. I doubt there are many bees in my leaf piles, it’s been raining for a month straight.
dumples@midwest.social 18 hours ago
Just remember that month suggestions online are for certain geographic areas. You might need to move them earlier or later. (The best rules I have seen is when nights are above 50 F in North America)
madthumbs@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Colony collapse was due to fungicides being sprayed in the day. -Bees don’t need extra pollen (they have plenty of food to spare which is why we have honey as a product), and they don’t need people’s lawns (pick the leaves up before winter).
Leaving leaves is just being an asshole neighbor making safe paths for vermin to get into houses, and reduce the value of neighboring properties.
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 hour ago
Bumble bees do not produce large amounts of honey.
They keep enough food for a couple of days bad weather, but otherwise they don’t overproduce at all.loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Since HOAs were mentioned, I assume the previous comment was about the US (unless there are countries in the Old World where they are as prevalent, but I know of none). Domestic honey bees aren’t native to the US, and many native bees are endangered for many different reasons. In the rest of the world as well, honey bees aren’t the only bees, or the only pollinating insects, and each pollinator has their plants of predilections, some species of plants depend entirely on some species of insect, so insect bioiversity is very important. Protecting native bees in the Americas has particular stakes, because they’re the most adept at pollinating the native plants which are the cornerstones of several ecosystems.
fern@lemmy.autism.place 18 hours ago
Please cite your sources.
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
Does his ass count as a source?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Leaving leaves also kills the grass under them.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
oh no! Anyways…
Hawke@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
It most certainly does not. Source: have a tree, a lawn, and no interest in spending time raking leaves.
Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Lmfao
Sabre363@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
In other words, leave nature alone and let it do the thing it designed itself to do
CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 18 hours ago
And now I’m even more glad that where I live they leave the leaves under the tree. Didn’t know that bumblebees live under that leaves left under the tree. Now I wanna leave a commest about the cute bumblebees that live under the leaves that someone left under the tree.
P.S. sorry, couldn’t hold myself:)
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Or realize that there is still tons of land that isn’t maintained and is actually a better habitat for bees anyway. Even in your own neighborhood ther is plenty of places that don’t get tended to. This is really just a diversion to redirect people from all the things the ag industry does that harm the bees on a scale us individuals, even collectively can’t hold a candle to. Remember when they tried to convince us that leaving the water running while we brush our teeth was a major usage of fresh water. But again, compared to the ag industry, all household water use is a drop in the bucket.
UnfairUtan@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Sure but… It’s still a really good advice and I’m glad someone posted it. I rarely rake away leaves for reasons like this, and this gives me one extra reason to not do so.
That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but we can all be right : fight the important battles for large scale effects while enjoying the small scale effects of individual actions.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 hours ago
For insects, pristine lawns are a huge problem. This isn’t quite comparable.