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Comment by klankschap | Hacker News Reader

How about just leaving leaves for what they are. Just leave them and move on with your own life.

Agreed.

I saw a bumble bee come out of hibernation from inside an old leaf out in the garden recently. Amazing experience. The leaves also make good top soil.

If you need to move leaves, use brooms. Or leave the leaves be, assholes! :-D

Are leaf blowers only a North American thing? When I grew up in Germany I hardly ever saw one. When I moved to the US they were everywhere. Not sure if they became popular around that time or if it's just more common in the US. When and where I grew up everyone also took care of their own garden, so I suspect that played a role as well

Also never seen one here in Brazil FWIW

They’ve become more popular.

However, I think the idea that everyone needs to have a gardener loudly and poorly tend their 1/16th acre lot at random times is a problem unique to California suburbs.

I can attest it also happens in New York suburbs.

Yeah I have to think it's the same phenomenon that makes people buy large 4-wheel-drive pickup trucks that they rarely use for anything but commuting and getting groceries. The same phenomenon that makes people buy a commercial-style zero-turn Dixie Chopper to cut their suburban lawn once a week. Big? Loud? Smokey? Gratuitious in every way? I want it!!

They have become popular around here. People use them to push leaves out of sidewalks.

Looks like they are way faster than unpowered tools.

I share that sensibility, but it makes more sense in spaces that have already acheived a "wild" equilibrium.

In many cases, existing crafted landscapes can't handle the acidity/moisture-trapping/etc of decaying leaves. So you're really advocating for people to give up on expensive, considered, laborious projects that exist for functional or aesthetic reasons. Even if there are alternatives that are comparably functional or beautiful, what's there is there already and a lazy wilding doesn't necessarily lead to one of those agreeable alternatives.

It's a bigger ask than your phrasing suggests.

Leaves can kill off whatever is growing beneath them and they can pose a safety issue in areas where people walk.

Rakes exist.

It's (often but not always) slower work, but it's quieter.

It's also more dignified.

Moving hundreds of pounds of leaves each season is backbreaking and time consuming work. The game changer is to rake the edges in and mulch them with a mower. Not quiet but it's quick.

Most American's would benefit greatly from some time consuming work. The comments on HN would likely improve from the mood altering benefits of exercise as well.

Lots of people have physically demanding jobs and things they do around the house.

And statistically speaking, most of this work is really done by professionals since most people live in cities without their own yards to clean up. People are paid to do physical labor all the time. It's often healthier long-term than desk jobs.

If it’s slower it costs more. Who is going to pay for that?

Sonophobes

But like bicycles, not every wants to use them, or has the health to use them.

A canopy of unblown leaves can cause damage to the surfaces underneath through mold or mildew. In some cases, this damage can be effectively permanent if let go long enough.

>In some cases, this damage can be effectively permanent if let go long enough.

I have no expertise in leaf or ground quality. If this is the correct, even in very rare cases, over the quarter-billion years or so that trees have been shedding leaves, should the entire planet not be barren wasteland by now?

What's the process by which leaf damage is undone over very long time periods?

It's just an ecosystem thing - if the ground cover can't handle the leaves it probably should be a different ground cover there. This does remind me of something cool though. I was up in the UP Michigan canoeing and ended up in a forest of maple trees. Their leaves had so completely dominated the ground that it was just a blanket of leaves and sap for miles. Only a few patches of fern could make it there but otherwise there were no (visible) ground plants

I'm talking about man-made structures that are prone to retain moisture like sidewalks or decks.

I couldn't agree more. We spend so much time cleaning the inside of our home, then we go outside and clean up nature. It's messed up

I did that my first year of home ownership (because I am lazy). When I spring came around and the snow melted, all of the ground cover had turned into mud. No living plant life at all. I had to replant it all.

Something tells me that was not your desired outcome. Now I remove the leaves.

So, you don’t have a large maple next to your drive way, do you?

If I didn’t have a leaf blower, my driveway would be solid ice in the winter, mud in the spring and fall, and dust in the summer.

Yup! And deciduous trees planted next to your house are an excellent green way to decrease heating and cooling costs. Shade when you need it, not when you don’t. This is the exact reason we blow leaves too.

Even in the fall driving on the sea of leaves from our maples would slide you around if we didn't clean them.

What you actually mean is leave the leaves so they blow away and become your neighbor's problem.

Exactly right. It's asinine to blow leaves. They don't do any damage and they create habitats for spiders and insects. I hate poeple who want clean, empty mowed lawns, aiming for an ideal that is far away from nature. Sickening.

Wet rotting leaves on a footpath are very slippery, so its helpful to be able to blow them off the footpath before they get all mushy

What? I've never once slipped on a leaf.

I don’t want a natural habitat in my yard. That’s what the woods behind my house are for. I want a clean, relatively flat, and soft field of grass that my kids can run around barefoot in.

I’m all for natural beauty, but most people already live in urban or suburban environments. What’s the point in pretending when you’re surrounded by asphalt and brick?

It's nice to see things other than just asphalt and brick.

Yeah, it's called gardening, a different, curated expression of life. Wilderness can exist elsewhere.

But leafblowers are mainly just antisocial technology.

>> It's asinine to blow leaves. They don't do any damage and they create habitats for spiders and insects.

Leaves are a problem in many areas, be them footpaths, roads or even railways. And good luck trying to maintain a golf course by just leaving the leaves out to rot on the grass.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58783589 "Dry ice to help cut train delays caused by leaves on tracks"

I'm guessing that the person you're responding to isn't a huge fan of huge expanses of tightly mowed grass in the form of golf courses, either.

Or the fire risks associated with having piles of dry leaves near to houses and such.

Obviously move them a little with a rake, but there's no need to blow them to make a 100% clean lawn. And of course, I hate golf courses.

Have you ever considered it's just a name and it's actually used on more than just leaves?

Or was the post sarcasm? Poe's law.

Err, they're mostly used on leaves. At least in my state.

I think it varies and you probably shouldn't have that much confidence stating something you don't actually know as fact. In my personal experience I see more commercial operations using them to blow cut grass. Maybe a higher ratio are privately owned by individuals though. Who actually knows?

In my area they're occasionally used to blow leaves in the fall. Mostly they blow grass clippings off the street and sidewalk. Leaves in the fall are mostly mulched by mowers. It's about 20 times faster than blowing them around and collecting them.

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