11 Gardeners Who Stopped Raking Leaves, and What Grew Back: Fireflies by June and a 9-Year-Old Who Saved the Yard

My grandmother has never bagged a single leaf. Every fall she rakes them onto her tomato beds instead and tells the neighbors it’s on purpose, and every spring her soil is the darkest on the street. These 11 gardeners also stopped raking their leaves away, and what came back the next spring surprised even them.

1. A family left their leaves for one year and saw their first fireflies.

“We have fireflies now!”

We moved to the suburbs a year ago and have been transforming the 1 acre lawn into gardens. I left my leaves, shut down the sprinkler system, and haven’t used any chemicals. I stopped mowing around the edge of the lawn to build a soft landing spot, and some natives have been creeping in — especially the ferns.

Last year we didn’t see a single firefly and we’re in a relatively rural/wooded area. It sucked.

Last night I freaked out when I saw a flash and had to do a double take and it worked!!

It saves water and destroys my stupid stupid lawn.

2. A gardener packed fallen leaves into tubs, waited a year and dug out free compost.

Gary collected his fall leaves in October and packed them into big metal tubs. Any container works, he says, even a trash can with about ten holes in the bottom.

Then he did nothing for a whole year. When he dug his hands in the next fall, the leaves were gone, and in their place was dark, crumbly compost for his garden. It didn’t cost him a thing.

“How to easily make leaf compost with updates”

3. Leaves, kitchen scraps and manure turned hard desert clay into dark soil in 8 months.

“The changes in our desert soil after about 8 months. 100% free and natural using leaves, kitchen scraps, animal manure etc.”

We collected so many after the leaves dropped this year and people were more than happy to have their yards etc. cleaned up. They are an amazing resource that made such rich soil!

First picture was taken in March when we started. Second was taken just before Thanksgiving when we did a big harvest. I live in New Mexico so it is usually dry year round here. Our native soil is pretty hard a clay heavy and without amendments doesn’t really change during the very short “wet” season we get (monsoon) other than turning to slippy, clay mud.

[The carrots grow in chocolate cake crumbs?] Yup! It’s our signature chocolate carrot cake ;)

4. A parent got the mower out after a fight about the leaves. A 9-year-old stopped it.

“The fireflies are not out yet, did u forget? — story of an unlikely survival”

Today was not a good marriage day. My spouse and I got into a spat over the state of our yard.

“Leaves are everywhere! Why do we have these weeds sticking out? When is the yard gonna look presentable?” I tried to reason and explain again. That native gardening requires a different perspective, an alternate vision of aesthetics.

Today my spouse (likely overwhelmed by the neatness left by spring cleaning done by most neighbors around us) was just annoyed. So in my state of irritation I went to the garage, pulled out my mower and went at it, “screw it all I thought”, let it be lawn. I thought, “You want the lawn, here we go, I’ll give you lawn back.”

And then my nine-year-old comes up to me with a puzzled face and asks, “What are you doing? The fireflies are not out yet did you forget?”

“I did,” I said.

“OK. Let’s put this mower away,” the kid told me and went on cheerfully weeding away the garlic mustard and hairy bittercrest as if nothing happened.

This is a story of how my native garden survived today. This one talked me off the ledge without realizing it. We talk a lot about why we do what we do with native plants

5. Years of leaves, woodchips and branches in the Italian Alps brought back the fireflies he hadn’t seen since childhood.

“The fireflies are back!!!”

After years of taking care of my garden and keeping the abandoned fields around my home tidy, i saw at least ten fireflies yesterday flying around my garden.

I basically removed a metric ton of brambles, so the other vegetation came back, filled the ditches and the old trails with woodchips, leaves and grass clippings to keep them walkable and to give bugs a nice habitat, piled old branches all around, planted pollinator friendly local flowers everywhere i could. It has been a long, long work but it is starting to pay off

I used to see them a lot around here when I was a kid, then nothing, I thought they were gone for good. When I moved into this house in the middle of the woods I hoped to see them again and nothing. Now after years of work when I saw the first ones blinking around I was so happy

I’m on the top of the Italian alps, close to the swiss border.

“‘Leaving the Leaves’ in an HOA”

I came up with this idea after reading Doug Tallamy’s “The Nature of Oaks”, which explains how oak trees can become ecological traps for moths and butterflies if the ground below is overly mowed or raked.

It provides a safe landing for moth and butterfly larvae dropping from the canopy above, and also helps bumblebees and even fireflies by allowing a layer of leaf litter to remain in “tidy” neighborhoods that would otherwise penalize homeowners for not raking.

Thank you. This is an old photo — the ring of hexagons now goes around the entire tree, as I intended it to originally. I didn’t make enough of them initially.

No mulch here, just fallen leaves (which, I guess, you could call mulch! but hopefully you know what I mean).

7. A landscape designer explained why leaving the leaves can smother a yard in a dry climate.

Daryl designs gardens for pollinators for a living and loves the idea behind leaving the leaves. In the dry Intermountain West, though, low humidity and little moisture mean the leaves are still there in spring, packed into a slick, slimy mat that smothers whatever is underneath.

So Daryl doesn’t leave them everywhere: the leaves get raked into a forgotten side yard, the back corner of the yard, the compost bins and the vegetable beds, piled several inches deep.

“Leave the leaves doesnt work for everyone—at least not in the same way!”

8. Potatoes grown under a pile of leaves came out of the ground clean.

“First ever potato harvest. 2.4 lbs. Grown under a smallish pile of leaves on fork loosened ground with very little care.”

I planted them late, the seed potatoes already sprouted and were very long and leggy. I placed the potatoes on the dirt and covered everything with leaves. I did not keep covering it as they grew which I think hurt the yield but I was still happy with the results.

They were covered with leaves. I got 1 green spot when the leaves broke down and a piece of potato was exposed, but they have been covered with a few inches of leaves the whole time.

That is just the way they came out of the ground! They were only laying on the dirt, not really growing in it.

I had about 6 plants that I planted real late. The seed potatoes were growing and about 2’ long when I found the bag they were in. I did not get all the small ones, I left at least 10 small ones attached for another week or so. I also didn’t build up the mound except once when I could see a green spot poking through.

9. A gardener blows three days of maple leaves into the beds to feed the mushrooms.

“3 days worth of maple leaves, blowing into garden beds to feed mushrooms & warm my soil!”

My massive maple tree is generous with its dropped leaves — twice a week I blow off this amount off our pathways and into the garden beds. Need to relocate some of these leaves to the front garden!

I cultivate them like any other plant because they bring me joy to see! But on the biological side, they’re feeding on the leaves and will help to break them down quicker.

Exactly why I wanted to post this here! Leaves are beneficial and should be kept wherever possible. But pathways need to be accessible so that I can steward all edges of my garden in the cold and wet months.

The blanket hate for leaf blowers is unwarranted imo. There is a place for them! My yard is one of them.

10. Five years of a “messy” meadow ended with fireflies so bright they looked like headlights.

“My entire meadow/garden is lit up with fireflies”

I just sat on my porch and cried because the entire meadow/garden is absolutely lit up with fireflies. Every seed, scoop of mulch, plant swap in random parking lots, and leaving the area looking messy from fall until mid-spring has been worth it.

My native milkweed is crawling with butterflies and native bees during the day, my mountain mint is more pollinator than mint at this point, toads are living around the nature ponds, and the fireflies are out lighting the night.

I’ve been working on turning this area into a native oasis for 5 years, and seeing the firefly population go from a few to so many the entire meadow, b veggie garden, medicinal garden, native pollinator garden, micro orchard, and the edges woods all looked lit up? Insane. They were so bright I thought they were car headlights shining through the trees at first.

I leave my garden looking an absolute sight fall through to mid-spring and I think it makes the difference. I hope you have just as many!

11. A backyard left to leaves and moss now has owls, deer and hummingbirds.

“We leave the leaves in our natural backyard”

Also, letting the moss take it over. It’s so pretty.

I just love nature and seeing all the animals enjoy our yard. The squirrels collecting nuts and building nests high up in our trees. The family of deer living in the woods behind us coming close to eat mushrooms in our backyard when plentiful. The many variety of birds singing and building nests in our trees including humming birds.

Also, we have owls, raccoons, bunnies, bats, and more. I’ve learned so much about nature having this backyard. It’s a beautiful thing.

Moss is slow growing but starting to fill in pretty good now.

One messy yard often convinces the neighbors better than any advice could. The moss, the owls and the deer in that last backyard never needed a sign to explain them.