Professional Landscape Architects and Designers in Sammamish, WA

What should you do with your leaves? This time of year, leaves are falling off the trees and piling up around your yard. What should you do with your leaves? Leave them in your garden beds A great strategy for garden beds is just to leave the leaves where they fall. They provide numerous benefits. Leaves provide important shelter for beneficial insects. Bees, butterflies and moths that pollinate your plants, as well as insects such as parasitic wasps that help control pests, depend on leaves in the winter. Max Ferlauto, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, did research that looked at the impact of autumn yard maintenance on overwintering insects. Ferlauto pursued this research topic because “we are seeing a decline in insect abundance and diversity, especially in urban areas,” he told OSU Master Gardeners. We know to plant flowers and other native plants that provide nectar for adult pollinators and other beneficial insects, Ferlauto said. And many of us know that the larval stage of pollinators feeds on the leaves of these native plants. We know less about protecting vulnerable dormant stages in the winter, such as the egg or pupa. As part of his research, Ferlauto retained leaf litter in yard areas where leaves had been removed in prior years. Moth emergence in the spring increased by 83%. Ferlauto believes that leaf litter helps both insects that overwinter in leaf litter as well as those that overwinter underground.