Falling leaves? You can leaf them alone - Lifestyle - The Times - The Times

“Don’t rake your leaves this fall.”

With trembling delight, I’ve read several variations on this headline the past few weeks.

The gardening gods have spoken, and the news is an early Christmas present.

Don’t rake your leaves.

It turns out that decomposing leaves are good for the environment. Nutritious for tender plants. Essential, it seems, for the complex ecosystem that burrows and crawls and squirms its way through rotting vegetation. The critters that will help your garden grow and keep noxious pests away.

Worms, of course. But also butterflies, salamanders, turtles, toads and chipmunks.

Chip and Dale, thank you. Mr. Toad, I am at your service.

Don’t rake your leaves.

At first, I didn’t believe it. How could such a seemingly simple scientific truth – that dead leaves may have a purpose in the circle of life – be hidden from the public for so many years?

Did we learn nothing from “The Lion King”?

But never mind that. What’s really important is that I no longer have to experience the annual chore of digging the rake out of the garage, the ensuing guilt of putting off the dreaded deed for weeks, and – finally getting around to it – the inevitable wrenched shoulders and aching arms that follow.

Don’t get me wrong. I love autumn, and I am decidedly pro-tree.

But I have never enjoyed raking. (Especially given the fact that we don’t actually have any trees. Our yard is just the place where all the hip neighborhood leaves congregate, act cool and smoke cigarettes when they leave the family tree.)

Even when our kids were small – especially when the kids were small – I hated raking.

Leaping joyfully into a pile of leaves is one of those iconic childhood activities that’s always better in L.L. Bean ads than in reality.

The leaves are never completely dry, so one child always ends up with something disgusting and wet and unidentifiable clinging to his clothes.

Another one gets poked in the face with a rogue stick, or has a massive, allergy-induced sneezing attack.

A parent has to completely rerake the pile, multiple times.

So there’s no great nostalgia for me in raking leaves.

But all that is moot.

Because now, in 2019, there’s suddenly NO NEED TO RAKE.

(Also, the experts say forget using a leaf blower. They cause pollution and create disturbing noise.)

So the news that my most dreaded fall chore has been wiped clean off my list is one for rejoicing.

What’s next? I wonder. What else will be deemed bad for the environment, or unhealthy for our hearts, or just plain out of fashion?

Doing the dishes?

Folding laundry?

Finally getting around to winnowing down the collection of early-2000s DVDs that have been sitting on the shelf collecting dust and eye rolls for nearly 20 years now, waiting for “Pokemon 2000” to be declared a forgotten cinematic gem?

I’m not holding out much hope. But I’m also not digging the rake out of the garage this fall.

Charlotte is a columnist for The Times. She tweets @ChLatvala.