Fall Yard Clean-Up Tips

Fall is the time for getting gardens and yards prepped for winter. Did you know that fallen leaves serve as beneficial food and shelter for butterflies, beetles, bees, moths, and more? Color Fairport Green, a grassroots network of local volunteer environmental activists working toward a sustainable future in our surrounding community, advocates these 3 easy Fall Clean-Up Tips and the resources below:

🍁 Leave the leaves
🌱 Save the seeds
🚫 Know your weeds   

Leave the Leaves:
Save the leaf blower (or, even better, a sturdy push broom) for sidewalks and driveways. Leaves provide great nutrition for trees and shrubs, protection for overwintering butterflies, and is a great mulch for garden beds and natural paths. Experts disagree on the effect on your lawn, so if you're worried, you can shred them first.

Save the Seeds:
Harvest seeds from blooms you love for winter seed-sharing events! Safer than plant exchanges (which can spread invasive species like Jumping Worms), seeds need a little time, a paper bag for storage, and a pen for labeling.

Learn about Weeds:
Are you really sure that's a weed? Use popular apps like Seek or PictureThis to identify what's what in your yard. Maybe you didn't realize you've been spending time pulling out White Wood Asters, a low maintenance pretty little flower that's LOVED by pollinators. Or, unintentionally planted Japanese Honesuckle, which is listed as "invasive" by New York State yet still sold by local retailers. Make next year even better by getting informed.

Decided to leave the leaves? You're in good company!
Here are a few others who know it's a good idea:

National Wildlife Federation
This Fall, Remember to Leave the Leaves on the Ground

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Leave The Leaves!

The Wild Seed Project
Leave The Leaves! Rethink Garden "Clean Up"

National Audubon Society
To Help Birds This Winter, Go Easy on Fall Yard Work

Sierra Club (Ohio)
Leave Your Leaves

The Nature Conservancy, Canada
Leave Those Leaves on the Ground

If you want to learn more and are local, register for "New Fall Cleanup Practices" – an in-person seminar about Xerces Society's Leave the Leaves campaign and other new practices that are more ecologically friendly for plants, soil, pollinators, and birds. Hosted by the Town of Penfield. Two dates available.
Register here for Tuesday, 9/27, 6-7pm
Register here for Thursday, 10/20, 6-7pm

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