Leave the Leaves for Winter Habitat

The best things in life come in cycles, so every growing season must come to an end with a flurry of golden seedheads and fiery falling leaves. As that transformation gives way to a big mess, though, conventional wisdom says that it’s time to clean up. Every year, many gardens are clipped to the ground and millions of pounds of autumn leaves are raked, bagged, and shuffled off-site. Over the past decade, though, a new approach has begun to poke its head out of the fallen leaves. Championed by science-based environmental advocacy groups like the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Research and wildlife-lovers across the country, the movement to ‘Leave the Leaves’ raises awareness about the web of life sleeping in garden debris — and how adjusting our landscaping practices can breathe life back into urban habitats.

What Happens To The Leaves?

Across the United States, over 35 million tons of yard debris are hauled away to landfills and composting facilities each year. While Portland’s composting program means that most of our organic waste avoids the landfill, the average household still diverts over 1000 pounds of grass clippings, garden debris, and fallen leaves yearly. A huge surge comes every fall, when deciduous trees drop their leaves and many plants begin to die back. The most common answer is a frantic clean-up effort that ends with a sore back, a tidier yard, and endless piles of maple leaves and deadheaded perennials. Most of that dead material gets bagged up or swept away. That’s the norm — but, when you look at fall clean-up with a habitat lens, the science starts to poke holes in the paradigm. Maybe there's a good reason to rethink the rush to clean up.

Organic materials are full of nutrients

During the spring and summer, plants draw nutrients from the soil to fuel their growth. In nature, elements like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (the ‘NPK’ trio you’ll see on fertilizer packaging) cycle from the soil to the plant and then back to the soil, where that organic matter slowly decomposes and becomes available for future seasons. When you remove the debris from this cycle, your soil can become depleted and require amendments.

All that ‘waste’ is winter habitat for next year’s ecosystem

It’s like the old adage says: “one man’s trash is another’s nesting habitat.” Birds are eager to find seeds, berries, and shelter in the season’s refuse, while stem-nesting bees, cocooned caterpillars, and numerous other tiny critters are using “dead” material to protect themselves while they overwinter. The invertebrate world in particular operates at a scale so small that it’s easy to overlook, but insects and spiders play vital roles in our ecosystems and in our gardens. Some pollinate plants, some eat pests, and even those pests act as food for larger organisms like birds and amphibians. Safe winter habitat helps more of this ecosystem weather the winter or emerge in the spring.

A New Approach to Fall Clean-Up

There’s a strong argument for leaving your yard a little wilder this fall. Maybe that’s a relief – a good excuse to skip all that yard york – or maybe it’s an exercise in relinquishing control. Gardening is always a balancing act.

If you’re hesitant about making radical changes to your landscaping habits, you’re not alone. In a 2025 survey by the National Wildlife Federation, only 18% of responders already left the leaves in their yards (sometimes out of convenience). Many factors drive our fall clean-up routines — from aesthetics to lawn care to local laws — yet a staggering 90% of people agreed that they were willing to ‘leave the leaves’ for the sake of wildlife. That overwhelming support speaks to people’s love and respect for nature. Even among people who care deeply about the environment, the knowledge and tools to steward our landscapes aren’t always “common sense.” It’s a language of care that we have to learn together.

Finding Balance

Nature is messy. Gardens are curated. Ecological gardens can feel like an intimidating mix, but the truth is that these practices are often no more demanding than what we’re used to — and they don’t have to sacrifice garden aesthetics. While the wildest habitat for overwintering wildlife leaves the flower stems where they grow and the leaves where they fall, there are lots of different ways to approach fall clean-up with the habitat in mind.

Use Your Leaves As Mulch: Everywhere that you apply mulch, you can trade the bark chips for a layer of leaves that insulate your plant’s roots, act as wildlife habitat, and slowly break down into nutrient-rich soil. Raking the leaves from your driveway, sidewalk, or lawn into your garden beds is one of the most practical approaches

Grow Pollinator Gardens: Planting for pollinators is always a great place to start. When the season is over, this is the ideal area to leave as-is because insects are already using it. Leave the seedheads of your flowers and grasses for the birds (and visual interest) over the winter. If you do give them a chop, keep them stems long and/or leave the cut material on the ground. Insects continue emerging throughout the spring, so the best way to keep supporting them is to leave their habitat intact.

Create Soft Landings: Planting understory foliage beneath a tree and allowing leaves to stay right where they fall can provide a cushion of habitat for insects like caterpillars.

Compost and Leaf Mold: Fallen leaves can be added into a mixed compost pile or left alone to decompose into leaf mold. Both methods can help create a rich soil amendment.

Set Aside Low-Maintenance Zones: Even if you’re going for a certain “look” in parts of your landscape, you can set aside other areas (maybe spots where it’s a relief to skip mowing) where yard trimmings and fallen leaves can live. Lots of native bees and other beneficial insects like beetles nest in soil and dead wood, so setting aside low-traffic zones can help increase the diversity of insects in your garden.

Share Your Work: In landscape architect Joan Iverson Nassauer’s 1995 essay, “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,” she argues that “cues to care” — aka visual symbols of intention, like pathways, clean borders, and signs — can help us (and our neighbors) make sense of habitats that aren’t entirely meant for us. An untended patch of native plants might be just as effective in the ecosystem, but it’s less recognizable as a “garden” than a carefully-designed pollinator bed. Part of the “Leave the Leaves” movement is educating our communities, so a powerful “cues to care” for even the most untamed zone can simply be a “Leave the Leaves” or “Certified Backyard Habitat” sign to help people understand that “mess” is actually habitat.

Note: From Canopies to Roads to Rivers

Before you skip the fall clean-up altogether, it’s worth considering the “why” of fall cleanup beyond aesthetics and force of habit. It’s important to clear sidewalks of fallen leaves to prevent safety and accessibility issues for people using wheelchairs, walkers, or strollers. Leaf litter can also block stormwater drains and contribute to phosphorus pollution in waterways. These are reasons why many cities are diligent about sweeping leaves from roadways, so be a good neighbor and leave the leaves to the soil.

To Leave the Leaves

As autumn settles in and you find yourself with leaves all around, consider a new approach to fall clean-up this year. “Leaving the leaves” doesn’t mean smothering your lawn, clogging stormwater drains, and abandoning aesthetics — and it’s certainly no more work than laboriously cleaning up every spec of the growing season. It might just take some of the tidying pressure off you to realize the same ecosystem that animates your garden in the spring and summer is resting in the fall and winter, ready to emerge anew next year.

Let’s take good care of it.

For more resources on wildlife-friendly fall clean-up and ecological gardening:

The Xerces Society's Leave the Leaves Guide: https://xerces.org/leave-the-leaves