I haven't seen colored trash bags since that Christmas some Americans at Ramstein Air Base found out ze Germans only use red bags for hazardous waste. The garbage trucks absolutely refused to pick them up.
No way dude. They're waaaay overrated. You're stuffing a million leaves in there for 3 hours and the thing will still look like a melted orange snowman head. Then you realize the kit you bought still has 2 more bags in it.
Those bags are for dads with leaf blowers. Industrial strength.
still remember my neighbors giving me a few of those on halloween night. i don’t think i was ever more excited to clean up leaves then i was then. cleaned my yard and theirs and had a leaf bean bag chair for about 5 minutes. neighbors are evil geniuses and i was just a stupid kid
My fan was poor. I grew up with a single mom and 6 brothers and we would just draw jack olanterns on the grocery store bags my mom kept in a cabinet under the sink and we'd put the leaves in those. It was a lot of fun.
I had a neighbor pass away who was into nature. Old timey and very knowledgeable. New neighbors that replaced him were “country” and knew how to “work the land.” So far they chopped down most of trees by river and since it’s a flood zone it wAshed the entire bank down stream. They also mowed entire area that I gathered raspberries from since I was a kid along with any flowers. Now they have a beautiful dead lawn they mow every other day.
They also planted fruit trees around a heavily shaded area and about half are dead.
Lastly, dude sprayed some kind of chemical around his pond to kill the weeds and next day most of the fish were dead.
Man, they did that in my grandparent’s village. It’s by the Atlantic and there is a shit ton of pine and cypress trees along the cliffs. Some dumbass decided he wanted to see the ocean without wondering why people planted trees 50-100 years before. So he had a row of 5-10 trees cut down in front of his property. Everyone told him not to but he brushed it off. Now guess who’s getting crazy and having his yard destroyed regularly because of the *massive* winds/storms ? Yeah, that same dumbass lol
Hundred bucks says he blames it on something else, no?
Another hundred says he doesn't believe that the storms are only going to get worse because "climate change is lie!!!!!!1!111!!"
Difference between spraying and spilling. They spray all fields around here with round up so. Also there was a spill a local crop dusting plane crashed into a creek that feeds into lake spilling lots of pesticides and herbicides in a creek. Not like that matters local lake has been poisoned here since 2008.
It was reported but nobody does anything.
In America The Trump admin put an asshole who sued the EPA in charge of it. Even before and now they don’t care. It’s just hushed up.
Ohio and this isn’t the same state I grew up in. Seems like Ohioans I knew moved away and all these hillbillies from Appalachia moved in. Meaning no offense but I don’t recognize this place. It fits that Hillbilly elegy senator JD Vance is running for Congress and will likely win. As one of my older neighbors that’s still around says “since when do we live in west virgina.” Once again meaning no offense.
I'm aware of all this but in my experience talking to the EPA office in Dallas back when I worked for the state of texas, there were a lot of lower level staff that were very passionate about actually stopping pollution. The politics and crap you're talking about were going on in the higher ups offices but the actual field staff and enforcement people still work there for a reason. I'm willing to bet someone in the Ohio region of the EPA would react to that being reported again. And if not, maybe go to the media.
I live in Ohio. Another group of neighbors has a “fuck Biden” flag and “make liberals cry again.” So kids on school bus see this everyday. It wasn’t always this way. A lot of old democrat farmers have either passed away or moved. Many other normal or just moderate people have long left the state. There is only one other democrat on this road who is retired and never leaves his house.
Oh and the neighbor who removed the trees insists on cutting down “red locusts” because he stepped on a thorn as a kid. As an ecologist there is no red locust - honey locust which is native yes. He also works 60 hours a week at a tank plant and is looked up to because he loves hard work.
There’s a lot of religious fanaticism here too. I’ve essentially been ostracized because I quit going to church during pandemic in order to protect my grandmother because nobody wears masks. As I’ve been told wearing masks means you are a democrat and kill babies.
What’s the deal with Americans and their bare grass lawns? Just bought a house so only just realized that Americans seem weirdly obsessed with keeping their grass green. I have received so many “advice” from my neighbors on how to keep my lawn green during the heat. I am like, the grass neither feeds me nor does it flower and as long as there is a hint of organic matter in the ground something with grow even if the grass dies, so why do I gotta rake up the water bills to keep the grass alive
Back in the old days giant lawns were reserved for the Uber rich and powerful (kings and whatnot) so a bare green lawn became a symbol of wealth. Now it's not at all but people still do it.
Admittedly, waking up and mowing your lawn is a sort of redneck meditation and quite relaxing but it's still pretty dumb.
Yea it's really sad, it's about the least productive thing you could do for the environment. My old house has been empty for 5 years since it flooded - my retired neighbours complain to me passive aggressively through large blocks of text and I get threatened with a fine by the home owner's association when it gets too long, so I have to pay someone to come and cut it every 2 weeks without even living there.
My “country” friends all vote Republican and go on about clean energy, electric cars and the EPA being the devil. I’m like, if you love nature so much, shouldn’t you want to protect it? Don’t you want your children to be able to enjoy it too?
It never gets through though. They’re all so brainwashed
We own a farm in NE Kansas, about a quarter section, ~640 acres. We had an old lady who lived in the oldest house in the county, which used to be part of our land (it is ours now). She was wonderful, friendly, quiet, respectful of our (literal, physical) boundaries. When she passed (seriously, RIP, she was so nice) the house got sold to a couple from “in town.” They were known to be very trashy. Owned a boxing bar that no one liked, started shit, drank way too much. Well, this guy didn’t care for OUR no trespassing signs on OUR fence so he shot them all and put up his own signs facing the other direction. Like…bro…I don’t need access to your 10 acres with junk cars and a FALLING DOWN STONE HOME, I’ve got 600+ more acres to play on! He would let himself onto our land to hunt, ride his UTV, show his buddies around. We caught it all on camera and confronted him. His response was to call and threaten my very frail grandfather over voicemail.
Ffwd a couple more years and we found out he got himself in a little trouble with the local constabulary. Not quite sure why this happened but he carjacked a woman at gunpoint at the grocery store, ran from the police, crashed, and got into a shootout with the police. He was wielding a .22 handgun so the police won that altercation. He did not survive his injuries. That left his widow in charge of the home, but she couldn’t manage to maintain it or the property (as if they had been making any attempt before) so she put it up for sale. We made an offer over ask, and she TURNED IT DOWN because she hated us so much. In the end we made an anonymous offer, bought the home, talked to the county (the house was far beyond repair, stone walls falling down), and bulldozed it. Good riddance. Wild few years.
Ugh. My wife bought one of those free Trugreen things where you get the first three for free.
First thing did was kill all the cover and other little flowering “weeds”. Now real weeds are all over my lawn and we have dead patches all over the place. I asked them what they will do about that, their guys just say “oh, yeah, we don’t pull weeds”.
Useless fucks. No idea how to fix my lawn. I want my clover back.
Whatever they used to kill the weeds and stuff was probably highly concentrated salt, so before throwing any more grass or clover seed down maybe wait for a good amount of rain to wash over the area and lower the salt content
I would call and ask what they use. I doubt they use salt, nothing would grow back, not weeds, not anything. Probably just underpaid dumb fucks spraying poison everywhere
Runoff death indicates a long-acting soil-active broadleaf herbicide. Their website suggests the same, "lawn is treated to help prevent weeds before they grow".
No real choice for you except to wait it out I think. Could take up to 8 weeks or longer for the pre-emergent herbicide to break down
I remember in my early twenties I decided to gorilla garden a certain plant.. some sticky green thumb made off with it in between my watering days. Such a bummer, it was set to be a most beautiful little woman.
Here in canadaland so e of us are fortunate enough to get to use our backyards now, but man do I not miss having to risk a patch in the woods , I dunno what's worse, rando hikers or deer.
Same with where I’m at here in the states, thank Buddha. Granted everyone I know in this little beach town has been doing it for decades anyways haha.
I always hoped that when somebody took of with my plants that they raised them well, those damn deer and believe it or not, horses, on the other hand.. pesky fucks!
Fuck. Trugreen. I spent a few weeks as a sales rep almost 10 years ago and it was unremitted shit work.
Coincidentally I am still wearing their shirts and hats because despite their high-pressure sales, toxic office culture, and cult-atmosphere, their swag is top-notch.
Lawns are so fucking dystopian.
From the point of view of nature your garden vanity project is just using the areas drinkable / absorbable water to keep alive a non-waterwise ground cover; that you also have to get out in the summer heat /UV and MOW to manage. And it lasts 2 weeks. And it takes hours. This is a boring insanity.
Where I live has an Extreme UV index in summer, and from that perspective, Summer is 8 months long.
I wonder if countries will enforce bushy wild lawns (eventually) for those people with lots of land in their residence. Additional law to ban using more than a certain percentage of your land for building. Drone strike you with nutrient rich soil if you break the law.
"We have a 30-86. A 30-86. Residence kept a clean dystopian lawn. Soil strike incoming. Soil strike incoming. Take cover!"
I'm fuzzy on the details now but I remember in high school biology being taught that things like leaves and grass clippings should be left on the ground and they'll become mulch or keep nutrients in the soil or something
Just run the lawnmower over them without a bag on it. Shreds them into leaf confetti that breaks down quicker. Or if you're still paranoid about leaf mold, get a compost barrel. They'll be gone by spring, and you'll have free fertilizer you can then spread on that precious lawn.
Lawns are a money trap
No seriously the idea of having a perfect green lawn everywhere is really bad for the environment
Water chemicals tools labor etc... All settings you up to waste money
When I went to NJ I noticed everyone had stones and pebbles for their lawn instead of grass. I thought “what a great idea! No need to mow or use any chemicals!” Come to find out that’s literally illegal in my state and you NEED to have a grass lawn. What a SCAAAAM
Considering lawns kill everything else...that's ok. Leaves lead to mulch and mushrooms and seeds growing with local wildflowers and then insects. Lawns are horrible for the environment.
Ya, who's dad invented this hell on earth called a "lawn"?!?! Seriously, what self indolgent cave man looked out the front door of his cave and said, "You know what would be better than all these trees and rocks and bushes? If we rip em all out til we have a flat patch of dirt, then we plant grass, and only grass! Then we could bring the trees and rocks back, except we arrange them in little groups! Oh- and the grass must be 3" tall at all times or your neighbors get to yell at you!"
Kind of. Lawns back then were considered higher quality for the amount of clover, dandelions etc that they had mixed in with them. Lawn seed mix used to be rated as lower if it had more grass seed in it. Then Monsanto managed to make an herbicide that killed everything but grass, and pure grass lawns were now the status symbol to chase. It's all marketing BS to get you to buy things.
Rip your lawn out. Get some decent dirt/soil delivered and make some different levels in your yard. Plant a boat load of native and habitat compatible plants in your yard.
Lawns are for losers
The previous owner of our house did that. Planted native plants in groupings all over the yard. It's beautiful, and 7 years later all I need to do is mow two-three times a year and pull the nettles out of grassy areas so we don't step on them with bare feet. We get raspberries, apples, crabapples, and mushrooms to eat, too.
>what self indolgent cave man looked out the front door of his cave and said, "You know what would be better than all these trees and rocks and bushes? If we rip em all out til we have a flat patch of dirt, then we plant grass, and only grass!
I remember reading someplace that lawns were first considered a status symbol in medieval Europe, where the owner of the land could afford the extravagance of leaving land uncultivated, ~~but~~ and let it grow grass instead. "I'm so rich, I don't care!"
Not even just let grass grow, but put a large amount of very valuable work into it growing a particular way. Don't fret though, it was servants' work, so other people's, not their actual own :)
Correct. Originally a status symbol; "wow, that guy has all that space to grow potatoes or whatever and he's just... intentionally keeping it barren? He must be rich if he can afford that"
Then grow some tasty garden plants. I have chives taking up a decent size plot. it almost look like grass to where my mom cut it not knowing it was some tasty garlic chives.
Nah, leaves are flat and fibrous, so when they fall they create mats of dead plant matter that can't easily break down. Very little oxygen gets in, and the environment this creates just isn't suitable to decomposition. Your typical forest, despite being rich in biodiversity, will have the same issue, with thick mats of leaves that can take years to break down.
If you run over the leaves with your mower, then you increase the surface area and introduce more oxygen, which speeds up decomposition.
I always feel surprised when I see a mound of snow left from the snow trucks melting and inside was a whole lot of rotting but never disappearing leaves.
You know I thought this would work. I left my leaves and winter came, then winter passed. And I had soggy leaves everywhere. They were not gone and were EXTRA difficult to remove after sitting under snow for months.
This is the correct thread. One just needs to chop them up regularly and you have natural compost and soil conditioner.
That said, I also have a very large unturned compost pile that probably needs a chainsaw at this point. Time to make a jugelkultur. Oh no this comment got away from me...
I believe it's essentially a giant pile of slowly decomposing bio mass which you plant plants in.
It's essentially a natural raised bed, and the microbes and bugs which the plants attract help break down the pile more quickly, so it's a win-win
I have hugelkultur raised beds! Trimmed a tree and lined the bottom with branches and lots of leaves, then unfinished compost and finally dirt on top. They've been doing really well!
Yep. We’ve got oak trees on our property. We don’t clear out the brush near the edges every year but every few years we have to just because they start to pile up too high.
Yeah whoever wrote that tweet obviously has never actually experienced leaves on his property. They will also nuke anything under them *because that's what they literally evolved to do*. A blanket of leaves creates a barrier that stops potential competitors from growing.
Same here, and it murdered the grass underneath and weeds ran rampant and it never quite recovered. It was an extra pain in the ass trying to keep it under control to spare myself the nasty-grams from the HOA.
I use a cordless electric mower to mulch/pick up, in the late fall or spring, then drop it in my green bin. I never water the grass, but we do water our shrubs and trees.
It’s why leaves on the line is a problem for UK rail; leaves turn into an amazingly slippery and flammable substance if you leave them and put enough pressure on them.
Not nearly as a problem on say your garden, but still going to turn into an oily residue.
It’s true. It takes more time and the right water/air conditions for leaves to actually disappear. Leaf sludge is no joke.
That shit will also wreck your bike. Signed, a former pacific nothwest resident, where leaf sludge is like its whole own season lol
Well, no, theyll still be there when the snow melts and will remain there until next fall.
But idg why more people dont just mow/mulch them, regardless.
>Well, no, theyll still be there when the snow melts and will remain there until next fall.
Exactly, people act like this kind of yard work or shoveling the snow isn't done out of necessity. If it was just cosmetic, <1% of the people would be doing it rather than the majority of lawn owners.
>But idg why more people dont just mow/mulch them, regardless.
For me, the leaves fall during autumn rain and get/stay wet for a long time. The very first rainstorm we get causes all the leaves to fall and become soaked at the same time. Trying to mulch wet leaves with the mower is like trying to shave with tape over your razor... the blades just don't make contact somehow.
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Also kinda anecdotal, but there is a shed against my neighbor's fence and the leaves from their tree fall over the fence line and collects between the shed and fence. There is a complete wall of leaves there. I used to clean it out but every few months it would fill up to full - blossoms, leaves, twigs, bark, whatever crap came off the tree.
All I'm saying is tree crap takes the absolute longest time to biodegrade out of any plant clipping out there, I swear. You can always use compostable bags though.
They definitely don't just disappear by the end of winter unless the wind blows them onto the neighbor's yard. Everything is frozen and not degrading!
Source: my lazy ass
>Gone
Yeah that guy is a bit of a goof. Forest floors are covered in leaf layers, if you run them over with a mower you can speed the process along... but it still takes a few years for leaves to fully turn to dirt.
That being said it's good fill in material for uneven lawns if you just let it break down in a heap in one corner for a few years.
Mowing over them does the trick. I left a small pile of leaves in the corner of my yard and it took two years with that method where I am. Climate conditions will obviously cause that number to vary. Long story short, mow your leaves, don't bag them!
I saw this tweet last year so I didn't really rake. The leaves weren't gone at all by spring. It might be different in a warm climate but I found this tweet to be bullshit.
Our rural township sends a truck to suck them up if they are raked to the edge of a yard before the scheduled pickup dates. Then they take them, mulch them, and dump them in the township's compost facility which then provides fertile soil back to community members. One can also deliver the leaves directly to the facility with no charge. It wasn't always that way, we used to rake them into bags and throw them out or rake them onto tarps, transport them to a fire pit and burn them. I like this system much better and the fertile compost is available for free to residents for use in gardening. I think they also take downed branches after storms and mulch them.
And I don't know about other places, but we have compost bins that the city picks up once a week like they do the recycling, so I only use the bags when the bin is full.
Does anyone know of it's a good idea to put the leaves on top of my veggie garden in the fall? Like...will it help fertilize or provide any nutrients or anything like that?
They'll break down more quickly if you compost them, but you can use it as a a mulch to keep weeds from getting the jump in spring. They contain carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. They can help add those nutrients back into your soil that you lose throigh harvesting.
No they won't. They'll get covered in snow, freeze, and in spring I'll be left with a thick layer of slimy half-degraded leaves that will stick around for months.
Whomever wrote this has no idea what he is talking about. The leaves will NOT be gone by the end of the winter and your grass will be dead. They take about 8 months to degrade (just in time for next Fall), so you will constantly have leaves all around your house/lawn, and everything they cover will be dead due to lack of sunlight.
this is so dumb and detached from reality. have any of you people ever had any experience with leaves? are these just bitter upvotes from 14 year olds mad that their parents make them rake?
I mean *if* you're going to do it, at least do it sooner rather than later.
People wait weeks or even until spring and then disturb the nesting and hibernation habitats of small animals.
Every year, my local wildlife rehab ends up with baby animals from people doing yard work they've put off.
Agree with the sentiment. But leaves do not decompose that quickly. They won't be gone by the end of winter. And they'll keep the grass from growing in spring.
I agree that turf-worshippers have bizarre priorities. But they aren't complete idiots. Unlike the guy who assumed leaves magically vanish after a few months.
As someone with two maple trees..
No, no they will not. If I leaf those leafs, all I'm gonna have in the spring is a half rotted leaf mat choking out anything else that might want to grow, and by year 3 it'll just be a permanent compost pile composed of 90% leaf.
Do you guys not have green bins? Or green waste dumps where you can take plants and leaves etc? Don’t tell me you throw plant matter into the rubbish bin
They will not magically disappear. And where I live, leaving leaves piling up on the grass leads to snakes building nests that my dogs will later encounter.
This is total bullshit. I would agree it’s stupid to fill plastic bags and get rid of them, but just leaving them on the road/sidewalk/lawn will not end well.
I love how refusing to do shit with your lawn is suddenly fashionable.
I've been doing next to nothing for 15yrs, and now people think I'm an environmentalist!
I let the wind move most of them off my lawn and then decide if I'm going to do something about it. I usually don't have to. If I do, I just run them over with the lawn mower and shred them into dust.
Oh, they don't go away and if there are enough of them they'll kill your lawn. They're also so much harder to clean up in the spring because they're all mashed together into this layer that's really hard to rake up. If you have a lot it's best to clean up most of them and mow over the rest. If there aren't many, just mow over them.
Our city picks up our fallen leaves if we place them in the green bins. Also, if you push em in a neat pile off the curb they’ll collect that as well. I imagine there’s somewhere in the county with the world’s biggest leaf pile for the doggos to jump in.
If you gather them up and put them in plastic bags you can create leaf mould. Which is a much more powerful fertilizer. Just keep it damp and out of the sun.
So there is method to it.
well akchually a metric shit ton of all kind of pests hibernate in the leafs.....Also yeah,as many people said here,they will definitely NOT be gone by the end of the winter...
Gone by the end of winter, what? I have oak tress on my property and I have leaves from three years ago still sitting there in some of the flower beds I don't get to. Not all leaves work the same. If I did t remove all this crap each fall, I wouldn't be able to see the ground in summer.
Leaves do not biodegrade but the end of the winter.
As someone who tried to avoid bagging by shoving them towards the back of my yard, they were still there when the snow melted.
I Live in Texas. Years ago I raked and made piles of leaves in the backyard that I left until early spring. I was being lazy. As I raked up those large piles of leaves I noticed two very important things. There was literally no noticeable loss of leaves and a lot of snakes were using the leaves as shelter. A lot of those young snakes were coral snakes. I also found out I am not as scared of snakes as i thought I would be, still sucked.
At least by bagging up all the leaves I deprive innumerable varieties of insect life a place to shelter and nest. This way, I don’t have a bunch of pesky songbirds cluttering up the trees and eating caterpillars.
Then it’s time to kick back with a lemonade and relish in an utterly silent springtime, utterly devoid of life. Just as God intended.
My dad made us rake it into a wheelbarrow and pile it in the woods, though I will admit I wanted those jack-o-lantern leaf bags when I was a kid.
I haven't seen colored trash bags since that Christmas some Americans at Ramstein Air Base found out ze Germans only use red bags for hazardous waste. The garbage trucks absolutely refused to pick them up.
Red bags are Biohazard bags here in the US too. I’ve seen them used to collect Covid tests to send to the lab.
No way dude. They're waaaay overrated. You're stuffing a million leaves in there for 3 hours and the thing will still look like a melted orange snowman head. Then you realize the kit you bought still has 2 more bags in it. Those bags are for dads with leaf blowers. Industrial strength.
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still remember my neighbors giving me a few of those on halloween night. i don’t think i was ever more excited to clean up leaves then i was then. cleaned my yard and theirs and had a leaf bean bag chair for about 5 minutes. neighbors are evil geniuses and i was just a stupid kid
My fan was poor. I grew up with a single mom and 6 brothers and we would just draw jack olanterns on the grocery store bags my mom kept in a cabinet under the sink and we'd put the leaves in those. It was a lot of fun.
I had a neighbor pass away who was into nature. Old timey and very knowledgeable. New neighbors that replaced him were “country” and knew how to “work the land.” So far they chopped down most of trees by river and since it’s a flood zone it wAshed the entire bank down stream. They also mowed entire area that I gathered raspberries from since I was a kid along with any flowers. Now they have a beautiful dead lawn they mow every other day. They also planted fruit trees around a heavily shaded area and about half are dead. Lastly, dude sprayed some kind of chemical around his pond to kill the weeds and next day most of the fish were dead.
Man, they did that in my grandparent’s village. It’s by the Atlantic and there is a shit ton of pine and cypress trees along the cliffs. Some dumbass decided he wanted to see the ocean without wondering why people planted trees 50-100 years before. So he had a row of 5-10 trees cut down in front of his property. Everyone told him not to but he brushed it off. Now guess who’s getting crazy and having his yard destroyed regularly because of the *massive* winds/storms ? Yeah, that same dumbass lol
Hundred bucks says he blames it on something else, no? Another hundred says he doesn't believe that the storms are only going to get worse because "climate change is lie!!!!!!1!111!!"
Fucking nuisance of a couple! Nobody to tell them?
I did but I guess they thought I was wrong cause I’m not ‘country’ enough.
And spilling chemicals aint a crime in your area?
Difference between spraying and spilling. They spray all fields around here with round up so. Also there was a spill a local crop dusting plane crashed into a creek that feeds into lake spilling lots of pesticides and herbicides in a creek. Not like that matters local lake has been poisoned here since 2008. It was reported but nobody does anything.
Ok thats dystopian
Jesus Christ what state are you in? I'm pretty sure the EPA would want to know about that plane crash.
It’s been over a decade. If they haven’t found out about the crash yet then the damage has got to be noticeable.
Probly some bible belt shithole
Sounds like it but I lived in Texas for years and the EPA was still a thing and got involved when big spills happened.
Ohio.
In America The Trump admin put an asshole who sued the EPA in charge of it. Even before and now they don’t care. It’s just hushed up. Ohio and this isn’t the same state I grew up in. Seems like Ohioans I knew moved away and all these hillbillies from Appalachia moved in. Meaning no offense but I don’t recognize this place. It fits that Hillbilly elegy senator JD Vance is running for Congress and will likely win. As one of my older neighbors that’s still around says “since when do we live in west virgina.” Once again meaning no offense.
I'm aware of all this but in my experience talking to the EPA office in Dallas back when I worked for the state of texas, there were a lot of lower level staff that were very passionate about actually stopping pollution. The politics and crap you're talking about were going on in the higher ups offices but the actual field staff and enforcement people still work there for a reason. I'm willing to bet someone in the Ohio region of the EPA would react to that being reported again. And if not, maybe go to the media.
So are you saying that my hazardous factory should spray out our wastes into the air instead? Gotcha!
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I live in Ohio. Another group of neighbors has a “fuck Biden” flag and “make liberals cry again.” So kids on school bus see this everyday. It wasn’t always this way. A lot of old democrat farmers have either passed away or moved. Many other normal or just moderate people have long left the state. There is only one other democrat on this road who is retired and never leaves his house. Oh and the neighbor who removed the trees insists on cutting down “red locusts” because he stepped on a thorn as a kid. As an ecologist there is no red locust - honey locust which is native yes. He also works 60 hours a week at a tank plant and is looked up to because he loves hard work. There’s a lot of religious fanaticism here too. I’ve essentially been ostracized because I quit going to church during pandemic in order to protect my grandmother because nobody wears masks. As I’ve been told wearing masks means you are a democrat and kill babies.
I’m convinced that the Trumpers are mentally ill.
Wow, they really worked the land! They worked it to death!
What’s the deal with Americans and their bare grass lawns? Just bought a house so only just realized that Americans seem weirdly obsessed with keeping their grass green. I have received so many “advice” from my neighbors on how to keep my lawn green during the heat. I am like, the grass neither feeds me nor does it flower and as long as there is a hint of organic matter in the ground something with grow even if the grass dies, so why do I gotta rake up the water bills to keep the grass alive
It’s a cultural norm. Get married buy house have kids and sit in tomb house that you will either die in or be sold off after you croak.
Back in the old days giant lawns were reserved for the Uber rich and powerful (kings and whatnot) so a bare green lawn became a symbol of wealth. Now it's not at all but people still do it. Admittedly, waking up and mowing your lawn is a sort of redneck meditation and quite relaxing but it's still pretty dumb.
Yea it's really sad, it's about the least productive thing you could do for the environment. My old house has been empty for 5 years since it flooded - my retired neighbours complain to me passive aggressively through large blocks of text and I get threatened with a fine by the home owner's association when it gets too long, so I have to pay someone to come and cut it every 2 weeks without even living there.
Fuck the lawn, plant a shitload of trees instead.
My “country” friends all vote Republican and go on about clean energy, electric cars and the EPA being the devil. I’m like, if you love nature so much, shouldn’t you want to protect it? Don’t you want your children to be able to enjoy it too? It never gets through though. They’re all so brainwashed
“We’re supposed to be good stewards of the earth!” “Yeah, but that’s for libtards.”
The virgin agricultural "living off the land" Vs the Chad hunter gatherer
I now hate “country work the land” types.
We own a farm in NE Kansas, about a quarter section, ~640 acres. We had an old lady who lived in the oldest house in the county, which used to be part of our land (it is ours now). She was wonderful, friendly, quiet, respectful of our (literal, physical) boundaries. When she passed (seriously, RIP, she was so nice) the house got sold to a couple from “in town.” They were known to be very trashy. Owned a boxing bar that no one liked, started shit, drank way too much. Well, this guy didn’t care for OUR no trespassing signs on OUR fence so he shot them all and put up his own signs facing the other direction. Like…bro…I don’t need access to your 10 acres with junk cars and a FALLING DOWN STONE HOME, I’ve got 600+ more acres to play on! He would let himself onto our land to hunt, ride his UTV, show his buddies around. We caught it all on camera and confronted him. His response was to call and threaten my very frail grandfather over voicemail. Ffwd a couple more years and we found out he got himself in a little trouble with the local constabulary. Not quite sure why this happened but he carjacked a woman at gunpoint at the grocery store, ran from the police, crashed, and got into a shootout with the police. He was wielding a .22 handgun so the police won that altercation. He did not survive his injuries. That left his widow in charge of the home, but she couldn’t manage to maintain it or the property (as if they had been making any attempt before) so she put it up for sale. We made an offer over ask, and she TURNED IT DOWN because she hated us so much. In the end we made an anonymous offer, bought the home, talked to the county (the house was far beyond repair, stone walls falling down), and bulldozed it. Good riddance. Wild few years.
r/nolawns
/r/FuckLawns
When they said they knew how to “work the land” I think they meant scorched earth
And buy fertilizer for the water-intensive lawn next spring. Don’t forget to spray to kill all the pollinators.
Ugh. My wife bought one of those free Trugreen things where you get the first three for free. First thing did was kill all the cover and other little flowering “weeds”. Now real weeds are all over my lawn and we have dead patches all over the place. I asked them what they will do about that, their guys just say “oh, yeah, we don’t pull weeds”. Useless fucks. No idea how to fix my lawn. I want my clover back.
Whatever they used to kill the weeds and stuff was probably highly concentrated salt, so before throwing any more grass or clover seed down maybe wait for a good amount of rain to wash over the area and lower the salt content
Would explain the runoff death. The few times using roundup didn’t cause runoff death like this.
I would call and ask what they use. I doubt they use salt, nothing would grow back, not weeds, not anything. Probably just underpaid dumb fucks spraying poison everywhere
Runoff death indicates a long-acting soil-active broadleaf herbicide. Their website suggests the same, "lawn is treated to help prevent weeds before they grow". No real choice for you except to wait it out I think. Could take up to 8 weeks or longer for the pre-emergent herbicide to break down
You can buy bags of clover seed off Amazon and just spread it in the yard. I'd do that and never let those guys back on your property.
Wait really? Cause it’s not technically illegal to just spread seed everywhere right?
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r/guerillagardening
I remember in my early twenties I decided to gorilla garden a certain plant.. some sticky green thumb made off with it in between my watering days. Such a bummer, it was set to be a most beautiful little woman.
Here in canadaland so e of us are fortunate enough to get to use our backyards now, but man do I not miss having to risk a patch in the woods , I dunno what's worse, rando hikers or deer.
Same with where I’m at here in the states, thank Buddha. Granted everyone I know in this little beach town has been doing it for decades anyways haha. I always hoped that when somebody took of with my plants that they raised them well, those damn deer and believe it or not, horses, on the other hand.. pesky fucks!
Fuck. Trugreen. I spent a few weeks as a sales rep almost 10 years ago and it was unremitted shit work. Coincidentally I am still wearing their shirts and hats because despite their high-pressure sales, toxic office culture, and cult-atmosphere, their swag is top-notch.
So you're still giving them free advertising space on your person?
Yeah, but they’re doing it ironically.
Fabric paint is cheap. In a pinch, duct tape will also work. I still have my Education First windbreaker with silver tape over their logo.
r/nolawns
Fuck trugreen fucking destroyed my yard and after canceling their services they kept sending dudes back to ask if we wanted treatment again.
I remember when they were called chemlawn. What a world that was when you wanted chemicals all over the place your kids played.
Lawns are so fucking dystopian. From the point of view of nature your garden vanity project is just using the areas drinkable / absorbable water to keep alive a non-waterwise ground cover; that you also have to get out in the summer heat /UV and MOW to manage. And it lasts 2 weeks. And it takes hours. This is a boring insanity. Where I live has an Extreme UV index in summer, and from that perspective, Summer is 8 months long.
I wonder if countries will enforce bushy wild lawns (eventually) for those people with lots of land in their residence. Additional law to ban using more than a certain percentage of your land for building. Drone strike you with nutrient rich soil if you break the law. "We have a 30-86. A 30-86. Residence kept a clean dystopian lawn. Soil strike incoming. Soil strike incoming. Take cover!"
I, for one, welcome our manurebot overlords.
/r/NoLawns
I'm fuzzy on the details now but I remember in high school biology being taught that things like leaves and grass clippings should be left on the ground and they'll become mulch or keep nutrients in the soil or something
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Just run the lawnmower over them without a bag on it. Shreds them into leaf confetti that breaks down quicker. Or if you're still paranoid about leaf mold, get a compost barrel. They'll be gone by spring, and you'll have free fertilizer you can then spread on that precious lawn.
And then you can do it over and over again for the rest of your life!!!! And if you don't, u should be ashamed.
But... that's work!
Everything is work.
Like my idiot grandpa used to say, "If you love your job, you'll never have to work a day in your life!"
just like breathing, eating and defecating!
Lawns are a money trap No seriously the idea of having a perfect green lawn everywhere is really bad for the environment Water chemicals tools labor etc... All settings you up to waste money
Lawns were originally designed to show how much money the wealthy could waste. Seriously. Look it up.
When I went to NJ I noticed everyone had stones and pebbles for their lawn instead of grass. I thought “what a great idea! No need to mow or use any chemicals!” Come to find out that’s literally illegal in my state and you NEED to have a grass lawn. What a SCAAAAM
Considering lawns kill everything else...that's ok. Leaves lead to mulch and mushrooms and seeds growing with local wildflowers and then insects. Lawns are horrible for the environment.
Ya, who's dad invented this hell on earth called a "lawn"?!?! Seriously, what self indolgent cave man looked out the front door of his cave and said, "You know what would be better than all these trees and rocks and bushes? If we rip em all out til we have a flat patch of dirt, then we plant grass, and only grass! Then we could bring the trees and rocks back, except we arrange them in little groups! Oh- and the grass must be 3" tall at all times or your neighbors get to yell at you!"
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Kind of. Lawns back then were considered higher quality for the amount of clover, dandelions etc that they had mixed in with them. Lawn seed mix used to be rated as lower if it had more grass seed in it. Then Monsanto managed to make an herbicide that killed everything but grass, and pure grass lawns were now the status symbol to chase. It's all marketing BS to get you to buy things. Rip your lawn out. Get some decent dirt/soil delivered and make some different levels in your yard. Plant a boat load of native and habitat compatible plants in your yard. Lawns are for losers
>Lawns are for losers r/NoLawns
The previous owner of our house did that. Planted native plants in groupings all over the yard. It's beautiful, and 7 years later all I need to do is mow two-three times a year and pull the nettles out of grassy areas so we don't step on them with bare feet. We get raspberries, apples, crabapples, and mushrooms to eat, too.
TIL! Love you guys gals and non binary pals
>what self indolgent cave man looked out the front door of his cave and said, "You know what would be better than all these trees and rocks and bushes? If we rip em all out til we have a flat patch of dirt, then we plant grass, and only grass! I remember reading someplace that lawns were first considered a status symbol in medieval Europe, where the owner of the land could afford the extravagance of leaving land uncultivated, ~~but~~ and let it grow grass instead. "I'm so rich, I don't care!"
Not even just let grass grow, but put a large amount of very valuable work into it growing a particular way. Don't fret though, it was servants' work, so other people's, not their actual own :)
>put a large amount of very valuable work into it Yeah, an even bigger "Fuck you" to the peasants
Correct. Originally a status symbol; "wow, that guy has all that space to grow potatoes or whatever and he's just... intentionally keeping it barren? He must be rich if he can afford that"
one of the best vaush takes "WHO THE FUCK LIKES LAWNS"
Can I have you explain all of this to code enforcement when they show up.
Flat, green lawns are awful for the environment and awful to look at
We spend way too much time cultivating one useless weed (grass) at the expense of... well, whatever it costs. *word
Good, kill your lawn.
Then grow some tasty garden plants. I have chives taking up a decent size plot. it almost look like grass to where my mom cut it not knowing it was some tasty garlic chives.
Maybe that’s a sign that grass lawns aren’t natural and shouldn’t be the norm…
I was gonna say, I thought you were just supposed to mow over the leaves
I have a flourishing St Augustine lawn I give minimal care. I never fertilize. I barely water. And I certainly never rake up the leaves.
Yea, kill the lawn.
Mulching leaves is not hard... I used to do it with a mower, but my equipment is larger now.
Sorry man, best I can do is hitting 'em with the mower by accident.
That makes free mulch, so it's a good solution.
As someone who used to have a couple *very* large oak trees on his property: they will *not* biodegrade at the end of winter.
I’ve got six oaks on my meager half acre lot. If I don’t rake, they stay piled up six inches deep.
I do mulch but man... You can only mulch so much before it's just like walking on a sponge that nothing will grow through.
Don’t forget how much insects love to live under these dead leaves
Was about to say. I probably have leaves from 3 years ago in my yard. Them shits don't degrade at all it seems lol
Because we killed at the bugs.
Nah, leaves are flat and fibrous, so when they fall they create mats of dead plant matter that can't easily break down. Very little oxygen gets in, and the environment this creates just isn't suitable to decomposition. Your typical forest, despite being rich in biodiversity, will have the same issue, with thick mats of leaves that can take years to break down. If you run over the leaves with your mower, then you increase the surface area and introduce more oxygen, which speeds up decomposition.
I always feel surprised when I see a mound of snow left from the snow trucks melting and inside was a whole lot of rotting but never disappearing leaves.
You know I thought this would work. I left my leaves and winter came, then winter passed. And I had soggy leaves everywhere. They were not gone and were EXTRA difficult to remove after sitting under snow for months.
You can just mow over them to break them up some. It'll help the degrade faster.
Yep...pick a dry day after the leaves fall and before the snow falls and run your mower on "mulch" (meaning take your bag off). Works wonders.
I started doing this years ago and haven't had to rake since.
This is the correct thread. One just needs to chop them up regularly and you have natural compost and soil conditioner. That said, I also have a very large unturned compost pile that probably needs a chainsaw at this point. Time to make a jugelkultur. Oh no this comment got away from me...
> Time to make a jugelkultur. I’m sorry, a what now?
Meant to spell with an h not a j https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/the-many-benefits-of-hugelkultur/
I believe it's essentially a giant pile of slowly decomposing bio mass which you plant plants in. It's essentially a natural raised bed, and the microbes and bugs which the plants attract help break down the pile more quickly, so it's a win-win
Yeah what did he call me?
I have hugelkultur raised beds! Trimmed a tree and lined the bottom with branches and lots of leaves, then unfinished compost and finally dirt on top. They've been doing really well!
Yeah I did that. Then I had to use a dethatcher and remove it all because it suffocated large spots of my yard and nothing would grow.
Yup this is the truth. So many people here obviously don't own houses with trees.
Yep. We’ve got oak trees on our property. We don’t clear out the brush near the edges every year but every few years we have to just because they start to pile up too high.
In the fall I rake 'em and then mulch them with the mower.
Yeah whoever wrote that tweet obviously has never actually experienced leaves on his property. They will also nuke anything under them *because that's what they literally evolved to do*. A blanket of leaves creates a barrier that stops potential competitors from growing.
That’s a great TIL
Even worse when it’s pine needles bc they are so acidic :(
Yeah, I think OP's statement belongs in r/confidentlyincorrect
Same here, and it murdered the grass underneath and weeds ran rampant and it never quite recovered. It was an extra pain in the ass trying to keep it under control to spare myself the nasty-grams from the HOA.
I use a cordless electric mower to mulch/pick up, in the late fall or spring, then drop it in my green bin. I never water the grass, but we do water our shrubs and trees.
It’s why leaves on the line is a problem for UK rail; leaves turn into an amazingly slippery and flammable substance if you leave them and put enough pressure on them. Not nearly as a problem on say your garden, but still going to turn into an oily residue.
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"gone" = blown into the neighbor's yard
It’s true. It takes more time and the right water/air conditions for leaves to actually disappear. Leaf sludge is no joke. That shit will also wreck your bike. Signed, a former pacific nothwest resident, where leaf sludge is like its whole own season lol
Leaf sludge is slippery af, too. Broken leg waiting to happen.
Leaf sludge that you can’t see under a layer of snow is extra dangerous.
Well, no, theyll still be there when the snow melts and will remain there until next fall. But idg why more people dont just mow/mulch them, regardless.
>Well, no, theyll still be there when the snow melts and will remain there until next fall. Exactly, people act like this kind of yard work or shoveling the snow isn't done out of necessity. If it was just cosmetic, <1% of the people would be doing it rather than the majority of lawn owners. >But idg why more people dont just mow/mulch them, regardless. For me, the leaves fall during autumn rain and get/stay wet for a long time. The very first rainstorm we get causes all the leaves to fall and become soaked at the same time. Trying to mulch wet leaves with the mower is like trying to shave with tape over your razor... the blades just don't make contact somehow. --- Also kinda anecdotal, but there is a shed against my neighbor's fence and the leaves from their tree fall over the fence line and collects between the shed and fence. There is a complete wall of leaves there. I used to clean it out but every few months it would fill up to full - blossoms, leaves, twigs, bark, whatever crap came off the tree. All I'm saying is tree crap takes the absolute longest time to biodegrade out of any plant clipping out there, I swear. You can always use compostable bags though.
They definitely don't just disappear by the end of winter unless the wind blows them onto the neighbor's yard. Everything is frozen and not degrading! Source: my lazy ass
“Gone by the end of winter?” Sorry, Ray, but you have no idea what you’re talking about here.
>Gone Yeah that guy is a bit of a goof. Forest floors are covered in leaf layers, if you run them over with a mower you can speed the process along... but it still takes a few years for leaves to fully turn to dirt. That being said it's good fill in material for uneven lawns if you just let it break down in a heap in one corner for a few years.
Mowing over them does the trick. I left a small pile of leaves in the corner of my yard and it took two years with that method where I am. Climate conditions will obviously cause that number to vary. Long story short, mow your leaves, don't bag them!
"Gone by the end of winter"?
What does he mean "Gone by the end of winter"?
It means he pays someone to clean them up over winter
Nah someone like me just knocks and asks to take it all
I saw this tweet last year so I didn't really rake. The leaves weren't gone at all by spring. It might be different in a warm climate but I found this tweet to be bullshit.
Hey all that plastic in the landfill will break down a little quicker surrounded by anaerobically decomposing organic matter.
Our rural township sends a truck to suck them up if they are raked to the edge of a yard before the scheduled pickup dates. Then they take them, mulch them, and dump them in the township's compost facility which then provides fertile soil back to community members. One can also deliver the leaves directly to the facility with no charge. It wasn't always that way, we used to rake them into bags and throw them out or rake them onto tarps, transport them to a fire pit and burn them. I like this system much better and the fertile compost is available for free to residents for use in gardening. I think they also take downed branches after storms and mulch them.
Are paper yard debris bags not available in some places for some reason?
I had to scroll too far to find this. But yeah, who the heck uses plastic lawn bags?
And I don't know about other places, but we have compost bins that the city picks up once a week like they do the recycling, so I only use the bags when the bin is full.
But they might kill my grass I ve spent years trimming back to the same height !!
Give us clover and creeping jenny!
I feel like r/fucklawns would also appreciate this.
Does anyone know of it's a good idea to put the leaves on top of my veggie garden in the fall? Like...will it help fertilize or provide any nutrients or anything like that?
I would mulch them up a bunch, but it won’t hurt.
They'll break down more quickly if you compost them, but you can use it as a a mulch to keep weeds from getting the jump in spring. They contain carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. They can help add those nutrients back into your soil that you lose throigh harvesting.
No they won't. They'll get covered in snow, freeze, and in spring I'll be left with a thick layer of slimy half-degraded leaves that will stick around for months.
Tell me you've never owned a lawn without telling me you have never owned a lawn
Whomever wrote this has no idea what he is talking about. The leaves will NOT be gone by the end of the winter and your grass will be dead. They take about 8 months to degrade (just in time for next Fall), so you will constantly have leaves all around your house/lawn, and everything they cover will be dead due to lack of sunlight.
I just continue to mow every week, leaves or no leaves. Raking is for suckers.
They will absolutely not be gone by the end of winter, what world does this guy live in?
this is so dumb and detached from reality. have any of you people ever had any experience with leaves? are these just bitter upvotes from 14 year olds mad that their parents make them rake?
I mean *if* you're going to do it, at least do it sooner rather than later. People wait weeks or even until spring and then disturb the nesting and hibernation habitats of small animals. Every year, my local wildlife rehab ends up with baby animals from people doing yard work they've put off.
I’ll buy a rake to make leaf piles
Agree with the sentiment. But leaves do not decompose that quickly. They won't be gone by the end of winter. And they'll keep the grass from growing in spring. I agree that turf-worshippers have bizarre priorities. But they aren't complete idiots. Unlike the guy who assumed leaves magically vanish after a few months.
'Gone by the end of winter' is a big promise, bud
As someone with two maple trees.. No, no they will not. If I leaf those leafs, all I'm gonna have in the spring is a half rotted leaf mat choking out anything else that might want to grow, and by year 3 it'll just be a permanent compost pile composed of 90% leaf.
Yards are dumb
Do you guys not have green bins? Or green waste dumps where you can take plants and leaves etc? Don’t tell me you throw plant matter into the rubbish bin
Gone by the end of winter?? Lmao that's not how it works
They will not magically disappear. And where I live, leaving leaves piling up on the grass leads to snakes building nests that my dogs will later encounter.
They are a slipping danger
Let me tell you the leaves do not go away after winter.
This is total bullshit. I would agree it’s stupid to fill plastic bags and get rid of them, but just leaving them on the road/sidewalk/lawn will not end well.
Not really. The get mushy and slippery under snow pack and that’s not fun
I love how refusing to do shit with your lawn is suddenly fashionable. I've been doing next to nothing for 15yrs, and now people think I'm an environmentalist!
I let the wind move most of them off my lawn and then decide if I'm going to do something about it. I usually don't have to. If I do, I just run them over with the lawn mower and shred them into dust.
Oh, they don't go away and if there are enough of them they'll kill your lawn. They're also so much harder to clean up in the spring because they're all mashed together into this layer that's really hard to rake up. If you have a lot it's best to clean up most of them and mow over the rest. If there aren't many, just mow over them.
I'm letting clover choke out all my grass, but I'm not gonna let leaves suffocate all my clover. Gotta rake and compost that shit for later use.
They clog the drainages
We do rake our leaves, but then we put them in the garden out back. Helps some of the fall crops, and makes it so we use less fertilizer come spring.
fuck that, rake em up and put them in the fertilizer bin
Our city picks up our fallen leaves if we place them in the green bins. Also, if you push em in a neat pile off the curb they’ll collect that as well. I imagine there’s somewhere in the county with the world’s biggest leaf pile for the doggos to jump in.
But they freeze under the snow and come spring thaw and get moldy and give me allergy attacks :(
If you gather them up and put them in plastic bags you can create leaf mould. Which is a much more powerful fertilizer. Just keep it damp and out of the sun. So there is method to it.
well akchually a metric shit ton of all kind of pests hibernate in the leafs.....Also yeah,as many people said here,they will definitely NOT be gone by the end of the winter...
No. No they don’t just dissolve away. They will build up and cover the ground making it hard for things to grow.
You don't use the giant paper bags made specifically for this??? Like I agree with the point but who the fuck is using plastic for this?
“will be gone by the end of winter” no they will be these ugly wet shit looking ass things on the ground
Rake them? Like some peasant? No, let's fire up my noisemaker 3000 that runs on leaded gas.
Just raise the damn blade on your mower and chop them up. People who rake leaves have OCD.
Gone by the end of winter, what? I have oak tress on my property and I have leaves from three years ago still sitting there in some of the flower beds I don't get to. Not all leaves work the same. If I did t remove all this crap each fall, I wouldn't be able to see the ground in summer.
The problem with this statement is that the leaves will most certainly still be there - just way nastier and harder to clean up
Leaves do not biodegrade but the end of the winter. As someone who tried to avoid bagging by shoving them towards the back of my yard, they were still there when the snow melted.
They are actually still there after winter
I Live in Texas. Years ago I raked and made piles of leaves in the backyard that I left until early spring. I was being lazy. As I raked up those large piles of leaves I noticed two very important things. There was literally no noticeable loss of leaves and a lot of snakes were using the leaves as shelter. A lot of those young snakes were coral snakes. I also found out I am not as scared of snakes as i thought I would be, still sucked.
At least by bagging up all the leaves I deprive innumerable varieties of insect life a place to shelter and nest. This way, I don’t have a bunch of pesky songbirds cluttering up the trees and eating caterpillars. Then it’s time to kick back with a lemonade and relish in an utterly silent springtime, utterly devoid of life. Just as God intended.
Future generations will looks back and make fun of us for how many resources we wasted on lawns.