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RE: Excerpt of a NYTimes article followed by some thoughts and a poem:
Article: Why Leaving the Leaves Is Better for Your Yard By Margaret Roach Oct. 8, 2025
"Keeping leaves in your yard can bolster the number and variety of species around and the perks go beyond just the fall season. When you remove the leaves, instead of retaining them, Dr. Ferlauto said, you reduce the number of moths by 45 percent, the number of spiders by 56 percent on average, the average number of beetles by 24 percent.
Besides those declines in abundance the total number of individuals there was also a reduction in species richness, the diversity within each group. In butterflies and moths, for example, that fell by 44 percent.
Dr. Ferlauto highlighted key takeaways for gardeners to consider while making fall plans.
Shredding leaves on site is as costly to the lives in them as removing leaves from your property.
Removing leaves, Dr. Ferlauto said, can affect overwintering insects in two ways: You could literally be destroying them, he said, or you could be changing their microhabitat such that they dont survive."
My wife forwarded this NYT article to me on the day I was about to mulch our dead leaves and deposit them in the garden as I do every year.. Now I will rethink my plan. I will probably mulch about 10% of our dead leaves for the garden and leave the rest alone.
Loss of insect populations has been a major concern of mine for years, not just here on our land but region-wide and world-wide, because of course insects are the base of the food chain. As Climate Change proceeds to steamroll across eco-systems, with drought and floods and fires and violent storms, the insects are the first tier of nature to suffer from the change. And with fewer insects the birds have to waste energy and time hunting for sustenance, sometimes having to change their migratory patterns as forests become skeletal versions of their former selves. You think Im being dramatic? We have a pond a short walk through the woods that is 2/3s dried up for the first time in memory. We are dealing with two droughts, a seasonal (weeks-long) drought, and a major drought that has been affecting half of Vermont for a couple years. Wells are beginning to dry up in our town!
Ok, so back to leaving the leaves. Dont just leave them for the health of the insect population but also to hold in moisture! I guess thats all I have to say right now.
Here is a poem I wrote a while ago,
And there once were insects
No, I mean Insects.
They were everywhere,
like little alien life-forms right outside the door.
Walking Sticks were the largest
and they really looked like long sticks walking.
Has anyone seen one lately?
Caterpillars, colorful, furry, prickly,
barbed, horned, striped and spotted.
Daddy Long Legs everywhere.
There were bees in flowering bushes
humming like transformers,
and they were all wild,
making honey somewhere.
So many,
I still associate the smell of certain flowers
with that electric sound of bees.
Sure I got stung, a lot,
but it never killed me.
Getting stung was just a fact of life
on a summers day.
And there were Writing Spiders,
literally hundreds in the field.
(Oh yeah, there were fields.)
And all kinds of jewel-encrusted dragonflies
zipping through the air.
And ants, black, red, yellow and flying,
hard-working, good citizens
of their realm.
Oh and moths,
made out of powder, or so I thought,
because every time I caught one
and held it in the round container of my hands
it would leave a smudge of powder,
white, pink or bluish-gray.
I used to go to sleep to a symphony of insects.
They tuned up as the sun was setting.
The sound was orchestral in scope
increasing and deepening
until it felt like I was being rocked to sleep
by waves of sound.
Where did they all go?
Some people call them pests.
But oh, how I cherish those memories
of being rocked to sleep
by the music of pests.
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