Want to help wildlife? Put away that leaf blower...
We’re losing insects at an alarming rate, and the noisy contraptions certainly don’t help, says Kate Bradbury
Arecent statement issued by the German government suggested leaf blowers should be avoided because they “contribute to insect Armageddon”. The move follows concern over plummeting insect populations – a 2017 German study showed that flying insects had declined by more than 75 per cent in 60 of the country’s nature reserves; most recently a report by Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex warned that numbers of insects generally may have fallen by 50 per cent or more since 1970.
Such declines are devastating and extremely worrying. Insects, most of which are at the bottom of the food chain, underpin virtually all terrestrial ecosystems. A huge number of them pollinate our food and wild flowers. Without insects, life on
Earth would be very different indeed (and I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be here to see it). But leaf blowers? Of all things?
I hate leaf blowers. I think they should be banned for noise pollution alone. I rarely see them being used to blow leaves; it’s usually one leaf being pointlessly moved from one part of some bland, paved nowhere to another. “Pick it up!” I silently scream to the man (for it’s usually a man), who wouldn’t be able to hear me above the din of his awful machine even if I dared to speak out loud. My local train operator employs such a man to keep the station car park as sterile as possible. I always hear him and smell the fumes before I see him – my otherwise peaceful wait for the train ruined by idiocy.
Leaf blowers are very much part of the kit these days. As a jobbing gardener working for a team where the finish is everything and time is of the essence, I was expected to use them at the end of the day to “make everything look nice”. It’s what clients expect, apparently: a big team of gardeners rushing in, cutting everything back and mowing in stripes, before clearing the debris away and finishing it off with a quick blow-dry that the wind would undo the second that we turned our backs.
Gardens should not be blow-dried, not least because doing so is completely pointless. Whether leaf blowers contribute to insect declines specifically is not known – there’s no science to back up the German government’s claim – but as a machine that aggressively contributes to the over-tidying of gardens and other spaces, it must play a part in what’s worryingly being referred to as the sixth mass extinction, that is: extinction caused by human activity.
Piles of leaves are nature’s winter blanket; it’s no coincidence they fall when wildlife starts to hibernate. Got hedgehogs in the garden? Chances are they’ll be sleeping in that pile of leaves that’s accumulated between the back wall and the shed. Mystery croaking frog? Try the leaf pile. Random collection of leaves in a corner of your shed? A little field mouse will be bringing them in to make a nest. Leaves also shelter insects, including beetles, centipedes, moth caterpillars and pupae, along with other invertebrates such as brandling worms, spiders and woodlice. Many of these are eaten by the
Using a rake to gather leaves into an open cage is probably the least harmful method
hedgehogs and amphibians sheltering with them, or by birds picking through the leaves on autumn afternoons. But those that don’t get eaten live to breed the following spring, so the more leaves there are, the more life there is. Leaves are great. To wildlife they are everything at this time of year, and our gardens should be covered in them. Except they’re not, because we gardeners come along and clear them away.
Clearing leaves disturbs any species sheltering beneath them, exposing insects to winter wet, which can lead to fungal infections, making them and other species homeless and, potentially, killing them. Using a rake or brush to gather leaves into an open compost bay or bespoke leaf cage is probably the least harmful method of clearing leaves, but I can’t see much surviving the onslaught of 200-miles-an hour winds caused by a noisy, petrolpowered leaf blower. If those leaves then end up in a council green bin, a closed compost bin or – worst of all – landfill, then any insects that aren’t dead already aren’t going to survive the next phase of “tidying”.
Where I live, in Brighton, the leaves have only just started to fall. Every year I make leaf mould from leaves gathered from street trees (most of which would otherwise end up in landfill), but leave those that fall in the garden to settle where they land. If a large number of leaves fell on my lawn or borders then yes, I would move some to a pile in the corner or perhaps beneath the hedge, but otherwise I leave them to do what leaves do: shelter and feed wildlife.
I was never a very good jobbing gardener. I like raking and brushing too much, taking my time over jobs, listening to birdsong as I work. I was always being distracted by a butterfly or a bee, or rescuing caterpillars from patches of grass I should have been mowing into stripes. And, while I understand the need for jobbing gardeners to get the job done as efficiently as possible, I can’t help but think we should all garden a bit less. It’s better for wildlife and it’s nicer for us, too. If only more of us would take our time over jobs, listen to birdsong rather than pumping out noise and fumes to save time. Birds eat insects, after all: there would be more of them to sing to us if we would only down our tools.
Kate Bradbury is an awardwinning garden writer, specialising in wildlife. Her latest book is The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (Bloomsbury) and she recently appeared on Gardenwatch for BBC Springwatch