No BLOW!
Gardening is frustrating when you have excessive leaf litter or plant materials that clutter your gardens. Eliminating those unwanted leaves/litter for a clean garden requires the use of leaf blowers. Or does it?
Clippings and leaves are left where they fall because they are a natural fertilizer/compost. Mother nature has a method behind the madness.
Did you know that leaf blowers produce a significant amount of air pollutants? (Benzene – a carcinogen), carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter (dust)!
The current practice of blowing leaves onto the street is just rude to all your neighbours. These leaf blowers are not only polluting your neighbours lawns and street, they operate at 100 times higher than safe levels for your ears.
Tips: New plantings including evergreens, deciduous shrubs and low maintenance perennials can reduce your reliance on leaf blowers.
Yard debris can account for up to 20% of landfill waste.
Green practice:
- Rake leaves into brown bags for municipal composting. When more people participate, tax rates will increase to store and process the additional material.
- Rake leaves onto flower beds as mulch and compost. Takes a little more time and effort, and burn a few calories at the same time!
- Leave leaves and grass clippings on your lawn and they will eliminate your need for chemical fertilizer. Saves you money on fertilizer and time!
Rethinking lawncare: Fallen leaves and grass clippings are natural fertilizers – how else do forests and meadows self maintain? It takes tremendous amounts of money and natural gas to make chemical fertilizer, so why not do it the way nature intended it? Shred the leaves and compost them in place or in a composter.
Top 3 suggestions to reduce carbon footprint on your lawn:
Choose a diverse range of plants to create an urban forest:
1. Evergreens create less litter and enjoy living in their own droppings! Plant a ‘Whipcord Western Cedar’ (Thuja Plicata ‘whipcord’), or the Korean fir (Abies Koreana ‘Silberlocke’)
2. Select shrubs and trees with small cut-leaf foliage or deciduous conifers that create less leaf litter.
3. Use flowering perennials, planted tightly for ground cover, like Dicentra ‘Langtrees’ or Geranium ‘Tanya Rendall’.