On the Trail: Let leaves enrich your backyard park

It's sort of crazy that by the end of fall, in many suburban landscapes, you can barely tell that trees ever had any leaves at all. Of course, this time of year the forest floor and the places we like to hike are blanketed in fallen leaves.

What if I told you that not raking the leaves in your yard is one way that you can begin creating a biodiverse backyard park and help keep your favorite places to hike full of interesting critters.

Sound too good to be true? It's not!

Just like the annual leaf fall is an important part of the cycle of life in a forest, leaving the leaves in your backyard park will benefit a myriad of critters trying to overwinter there.

Although the fallen leaves are technically "dead," they support a surprising variety of life, from the earthworms and other decomposers that will naturally break down the leaves, to animals that depend on leaves to make it through the winter.

For example, did you know that leaf litter is where many species of butterflies and moths overwinter as pupae?

The way it works is that butterfly and moth caterpillars will crawl down or drop out of a tree and use the leaf litter as the place to form a cocoon. Hundreds of butterfly and moth species do this! So, if there is no leave litter, especially at the base of trees, these caterpillars have a big problem.

Unfortunately, there is evidence that insect populations are declining significantly. The good news is that by simply not raking your leaves you can be doing your part to "save the butterflies."

Animals like toads, shrews, and salamanders benefit from leaf litter to hide and hunt in, too.

And several bird species will spend the winter picking through the leaf litter in search of insects and overwintering insect larvae. In essence, raking leaves in the fall is like removing a giant, natural bird feeder from your yard!

What about that urge to keep your yard looking some version of tidy?

Well, if you can't fight the urge, at least leave the leaves in wooded parts of your yard or in areas that you are attempting to "rewild." And you can mulch around the trees in your yard with leaves you've raked.

Even mowing over leaves is better than raking them. The leaf pieces will break down more quickly and fertilize your lawn while still indirectly providing some bird food.

The reality is that the parks and forests we like to visit and hike through are surrounded, in many real ways, by backyards. This is especially true for many of the trails that I have highlighted in this series.

Nature is not really out there. It's a continuum. And in very real ways, healthy forests can begin in our backyard parks.

Mike Baltz has a PhD in biology from the University of Missouri and writes about changing the world from his home in Carbondale.