this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

A tree is like a quiet roommate, but makes a huge mess before leaving to travel internationally for half the year.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I deal with 3 massive city-owned (and admittedly beautiful) chinquapin oaks and two privately owned red maples on a 1/3 acre lot. If the leaves don't get removed then everything dies as a result of the acidity and thick leaf cover that also wont fully decay before the next autumn. There is no room for a compost pile of that size considering that the leaves couldnt make up more than half of it. I'm not a fan of grass lawns but the city and the HOA have to give the 'okay' before a lawn change can be made.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

How do I know when the queens are out?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

Oh, you'll know.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I always mulch mine with my mower. Only bugs that might be in them is scorpions, grubs, ants, or the odd snake sometimes

[–] [email protected] 14 points 19 hours ago

As a Brit we were always taught to gently disturb leaf piles before jumping in them or throwing them into the fire, just in case hedgehogs were in there. The habit has stuck, although I now just rake our leaves up onto the mulched beds and leave them. The chickens will then pull them apart and consume any living thing unfortunate enough to live there.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Or realize that there is still tons of land that isn't maintained and is actually a better habitat for bees anyway. Even in your own neighborhood ther is plenty of places that don't get tended to. This is really just a diversion to redirect people from all the things the ag industry does that harm the bees on a scale us individuals, even collectively can't hold a candle to. Remember when they tried to convince us that leaving the water running while we brush our teeth was a major usage of fresh water. But again, compared to the ag industry, all household water use is a drop in the bucket.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

It's been a while since I've seen the data, but isn't the American lawn considered a major biome now? At least compared to wildlands.

Between lawns and monocropping in the US, yes we need to fight back against those activities and favor rewilding.

For those reading, start by introducing native plants to your parcel. Let nature do it's thing. Then, consider going vegan since animals need multiple times the amount of land and water to grow: resources to grow the plants, then resources to grow the animals. Then, consider donating to organizations like The Xerces Society, the Wildlife Conservation Network, or MarAlliance. Better yet, find something local to you and join up!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

For insects, pristine lawns are a huge problem. This isn't quite comparable.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure but.. It's still a really good advice and I'm glad someone posted it. I rarely rake away leaves for reasons like this, and this gives me one extra reason to not do so.

That doesn't mean you're wrong, but we can all be right : fight the important battles for large scale effects while enjoying the small scale effects of individual actions.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago

I think that they're just railing against the smoke show that would have us believe that our individual actions are more to blame than industry as a whole. You can recycle, you can drive a electric car, you can even generate your electricity and store it locally in a battery and not even use the grid but even if we all did that without change to heavy industry we are still screwed.

One small example of this is how big tobacco and big oil have used exactly the same tactics to distract us from what's really going on and protect their profits regardless of the harm to us as a species.

Would you like to know more? https://www.eenews.net/articles/big-tobacco-had-to-pay-206b-is-big-oil-next/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Brings nutrients into your soil so you have a healthier lawn

[–] [email protected] 14 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That has not been my experience. The leaves wreck the ph of the soil and block light from letting grass grow.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Not much grass growing when it’s -20 out but you might have too many leaves so they don’t decompose fast enough during your winter

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah that's definitely the issue here. There's still a layer of wet leaves by the time the grass wants to start growing in the spring.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Let those leaves kill the grass and replace it with moss, clover, walkable thyme, native grasses, or any number of more interesting ground covers. I'm working towards a no-mow lawn. It's fun finding creative ways to thwart a pesky city ordinance: "A minimum of fifty percent (50%) of all yard areas shall be comprised of turf grass".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The layer of leaves kills that stuff too, right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

Probably. With a clover lawn you'll probably need to reseed annually anyway. $4 per 1lb bag covers ~10,000 sq ft so not really a bank buster there, just a little work in the fall and spring.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'll (electrically) blow leaves off of walkways, but the vast majority of them stay put. Fuck a fucking lawn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Fuck a fucking lawn.

Is that kinda like a putting green but for...?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

every lawn is a f-cking lawn if u f-ck lawns

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

I thought that's what couches were for...?

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm pretty sure if I didn't do any yard work by May I'd have the city repossessing my home.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago

absolutely insane law there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Start a movement to stop the city from forcing people to cut their yards. It creates smog, kills the insects we need for food, damages the native plants, wastes money, and looks ugly. Natural yards are awesome.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How does cutting a yard contribute to smog? The Lawnmower?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 20 hours ago

Yep, all mowers are not required to have any capture equipment on them. They literally just exhaust unspent fuel and exhaust right out into the atmosphere.

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