Healing Nature in Your Backyard to Support Fireflies and the Ecosystem

Ways to live in Harmony with Nature:

What if your simple autumn chore of raking leaves was harming the firefly populations you cherished as a child?

Explore the surprising connection between your yard maintenance habits and the decline of fireflies in this enlightening episode. We uncover the hidden impacts of leaf disposal on wildlife, particularly firefly larvae and other insects, and discuss how these practices contribute to larger environmental issues.

Learn about the vital role fallen leaves play in nature's ecosystem, from providing essential habitats for various species to nourishing tree health through nutrient recycling.

Join us as we offer practical, actionable steps to help restore firefly populations and support local wildlife simply by changing how you manage your fallen leaves.

Discover how you can become a steward of Nature in your own backyard, how to help heal Mother Earth, bring back the magic of fireflies, and create a balanced ecosystem for all.

Resources:

1. https://www.sustainablerookie.com/homeandlifestyle/why-leave-leaves-on-ground
2. https://xerces.org/blog/leave-leaves-to-benefit-wildlife
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/10/14/raking-leaves-yard-fall-environment/
4. https://www.leaflimb.com/why-leave-the-leaves/
5. https://www.gardenista.com/posts/leave-leaves-7-reasons-keep-fallen-leaves-spring/
6. https://ncwf.org/blog/leave-the-leaves/
7. https://montgomerycomd.blogspot.com/2021/11/fireflies-like-leaves-and-might-light.htm
8. https://hgic.clemson.edu/leave-the-leaves-for-the-fireflies/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you noticed a decrease in fireflies compared with when you were a kid? Do you pack up your leaves for the town to haul away? There's a connection between these two things. Join us on Season 2, episode 10 of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness, to learn what that connection is and what you can do to help bring the fireflies back. Welcome to Season 2, episode 10 of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness.

Speaker 1: 0:37

We're dropping knowledge bombs and answering your burning questions about nature, animals, spirituality, mental health, women's empowerment and other profound topics. This podcast probably won't change your life, but hopefully it will give you some food for thought, some guidance on this twisted path we call human existence. My role as an award-winning story keeper and catalyst for healing humanity and Mother Earth is to help you reawaken to your own connection with nature and, through this reconnection, reacquaint you with your intuition. What you do with it, how you incorporate that into your life, is up to you. I hope you'll make changes that benefit both you personally and Mother Earth as a whole. I hope you'll share what you learn here with others and that they'll make different, more compassionate and enlightened choices too. Either way, take what works for you. Leave the rest always work to be the best version of yourself and try to leave the world a little better than it was when you arrived. So, as always, this is the section where I would typically answer questions from listeners that are submitted via patreon. I encourage you to check out my Patreon and sign up for even the most minimal amount so that you can submit your burning questions. I do my best to guess what those might be, but it's much simpler for me if you submit those questions so that I can make sure I'm answering exactly what it is you want to know, and the information about that is in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 2:25

But in the meantime, let's jump into the seitan of the show where, as I said, we're talking about fireflies and leaves. So what do you do with your leaves? If you're like many homeowners in the US, you rake them up, put them in bags and leave them for the town to collect and bring to the dump. If that's you, you may not be aware of why what you're doing is part of the problem and how you can be part of the solution instead. So let's dive into that a little bit.

Speaker 1: 3:07

According to the EPA, leaves and yard debris accounted for more than 12% of the country's solid waste in 2018. And that's pretty crazy for stuff that's meant to be biodegradable and help the environment. But that's actually only the beginning. When leaves are sent to the landfill, they deprive wildlife and insects like firefly, larvae and caterpillars of the necessary habitat they need to stay warm through the winter. And, in addition, once they're in the landfill, the collected leaves lack the necessary oxygen to properly biodegrade and instead, when they break down, they release methane gas, which is 25 times more effective at trapping harmful heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide is Now.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Every fall, the trees put on this beautiful display for us before they drop their leaves, but this is actually part of their life cycle and it serves a really vital purpose. The fallen leaves are nature's way of recycling the nutrients that each tree needs in order to be healthy, and they recycle those right back into the soil, right at the root of the tree, right where it's needed. It also provides a warm blanket for those tree roots during the winter. In addition to helping the trees themselves, fallen leaves also provide habitat and food for birds, frogs, insects, lizards, chipmunks, caterpillars and amphibians. Different species use them as either food or a warm nest over the winter, or just a cozy place to rest, because they're not as active when it's cold. So one example is that 94% of moth larvae will also drop off the trees with the leaves, and that's part of their normal life cycle too. They overwinter naturally under those fallen leaves and they emerge as adult moths in the spring, and those moths become food for birds and, as we've discussed in a previous episode, those insects are kind of the basis for the entire food web. Bumble bees, fireflies and other insects rely on those fallen leaves to keep warm over the winter.

Speaker 1: 5:15

So if you've ever wondered, why am I not seeing as many fireflies as I used to see when I was a kid? They used to be everywhere and I want to share that with my kids, or I just wish I saw them more. This is why, because when you rake up those leaves and cart them away to the landfill, you're carting away the fire. You're literally carting away the firefly larva, because here's how they work the larva live in those naturally fallen leaves for up to three years before they fully mature into adults and put on that beautiful light show that we all remember and love and wish we were still seeing. So carting them off so that they can't do their jobs literally means there are no firefly larvae to become adults. As an added bonus, a lot of the insects being protected by the leaves will feast on insects we don't like, such as mosquitoes when they are prevalent in the spring.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So I remember when I was a kid, raking leaves and playing in the piles with my dad. The difference was, though, instead of raking them up and putting them in bags to be hauled away and dumped in a landfill to create more problems, we actually just moved them to somewhere else on the property. My dad had a big garden, and he used them as mulch and all of that stuff. Instead of raking them up to be taken away by the town, what could you do instead? Well, several options. The easiest and the most natural is to just leave away by the town. What could you do instead? Well, several options. The easiest and the most natural is to just leave them where they fall. That's where nature knows they need to be, and your kids and pets might enjoy playing in them too. However, you might have HOA regs that don't allow you to do that, or some really cranky neighbors to contend with, so there are some other options. You can do like my dad did and rake them up and use them for mulch in your garden beds. The wildlife and insects will still be able to use them and, in addition, using them as mulch can help regulate the soil temperatures in the really hot and cold months and it also helps prevent erosion during heavy rain.

Speaker 1: 7:20

If you're already composting with your kitchen scraps, you can use leaves as part of that compost process. They're considered brown material and brown material is a really vital part of creating a healthy compost, and when you create your own healthy compost at home, it reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, which is amazing, because those chemical fertilizers contain nitrogen and phosphorus that run off and pollute the waterways. They cause fungi to die and it depletes the soil system and harms the tree root system Not a good idea. If you're already growing native wildflowers on your property somewhere and I hope you are after listening to this show, I hope you've at least put some native flowers somewhere on your property. Leave those stems and dead flowers just right where they are. They're amazing food and habitat for wildlife. You will love watching the birds come and peck little things that you didn't even know were in there, and if you look closely into the stems, you can sometimes actually see insects sleeping in there. It's quite fascinating and fun in there. It's quite fascinating and fun.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Now, if you've been doing some research about this on your own, you might have seen some sites offering alternatives to raking that suggest you chop the leaves up with your mower. The thing is, when you do that, you're likely damaging or destroying both the insects that are in there because they're small and you're not necessarily looking for them as well as the actual habitat that the leaves create. You're destroying that when you chop up the leaves, so that's not the best way to deal with it. So whichever eco-friendly option you choose for managing leaves this fall, I do recommend you let your neighbors know what you're doing. Let them in on the plan, for one thing, they'll be more likely to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, instead of just considering you lazy or rude or whatever story they make up in their head about why you're not maintaining your yard to their standards. They'll understand it's intentional and, in addition, you might just inspire them to do something similar in their yard. And how amazing would that be if your whole neighborhood started doing that and everybody started seeing more fireflies and more whatever other wildlife as well. I think that would be a pretty special place to live.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Personally, did you feel a glimmer, a spark, a light in the dark during this episode? Maybe a firefly flash? You'll love my online course, the Soulful Seeker. Check it out at sparkconsciousnessnet slash TSS. You can also support the show as a Patreon member or episode sponsor. Learn about all of these opportunities and find additional resources about leaves and fireflies in the show notes, and just hang on to the word fireflies to help jog your memory and remind you to hop back on over here to season two, episode 10 of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness, to find all of that awesome info. And I will see you next time.