First the beauty's all around, and then it's on the ground.
The sugar maples here are dropping their leaves. The ashes dropped their yellow
leaves a week ago: the red and white oaks still hold on to most of their sturdy
brown and scarlet leaves. Local folk wisdom says that the more the leaves hang
on the oaks, the more snow we'll get in the coming winter.
Trees grow leaves in the spring from the carbohydrate reserves stored in their
roots. Later in the growing season, more leaves, along with stems, flowers and
fruits are produced from the fresh sugars made by the first leaves.
Once unfurled, leaves become elegant solar collectors. Using the energy in
sunlight they combine water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air to
create sugar and oxygen. That sugar, called glucose, stores some of the sun's
energy in the bonds between its six carbon atoms and is at the base of nearly
every food chain. These sugars also provide the energy and most of the
materials needed to make trees a little bigger each year- to create another
growth ring around the whole tree, from the tip of the roots to the end of each
branch.
All season long, leaves carry on the amazing process of photosynthesis. They
capture energy from the solar flux which powers our planet and store that energy
in wood, leaves, fruit, and sap. Green plants are the only real producers on
Earth. Everything else consumes.
As they collect solar energy, leaves simultaneously release oxygen, reduce air
pollution and cool the environment by transpiring water and absorbing some of
the sun's energy. The sugars they produce then flow to where they are needed.
They combine with minerals from the soil to create new leaves, wood, flowers and
fruit, or to fill storage cells in the roots, depending on the season. We may
harvest some of this production by collecting the maples' sap for making syrup,
gathering hickory nuts for nutritious food or cutting oaks for lumber and
firewood.
This is the time of year these solar collectors shut down and fall off to
reenter the continually cycling pool of nutrients in the soil which nourishes
all life. Soon it will be too cold to keep water flowing to the leaves. The sun
will be at a lower angle and will have much less intensity than it has between
the spring and fall equinoxes, the growing season here. The buds for next year
are already formed, however, and await the light and temperature cues next
spring which will bring forth more leaves.
Most of a tree's leaves will fall on the ground above its roots. These leaves,
crunchy and dry at first, insulate the soil. This keeps roots and the soil
life on which they depend protected from harsh rains and the winter's
alternating freezing and thawing temperatures. The warmth of summer lingers
longer in the soil. Eventually, water, age and the decomposers begin to turn
the leaves into humus, which provides food and homes for millions of soil
organisms. The minerals are then released from the leaves, and become available
for use by the tree for another season.
This cycle of growth, death and decay to nourish more growth has gone on for
millions of years, slowly building up fertile soil, diverse ecosystems,
complicated ecological relationships and metabolic stability.
So, let the leaves stay just where they fall. Our society's obsession with
raking up, or worse yet, blowing leaves and hauling them away is yet another
indication of just how far removed we are from nature's cycles. If you must get
rid of leaves, do it quietly and be sure to compost them nearby.
Raking leaves and mowing lawns are very destructive to the great northern forest
which once covered this region. This magnificant forest will begin to reemerge
if we just let the leaves lie where they fall.
Then, you can enjoy the colors as much on the ground as you did on the trees.
This is Bill Duesing, Living on the Earth
C 1996, Bill Duesing, Solar Farm Education, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491
Bill and Suzanne Duesing operate the Old Solar Farm (raising NOFA/CT certified
organic vegetables) and Solar Farm Education (working on urban agriculture
projects in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford and Norwalk, CT). Their collection
of essays Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful
Future is available from Bill Duesing, Box 135, Stevenson, CT 06491 for $14
postpaid. This essay first appeared on WSHU, public radio from Fairfield, CT.
New essays are posted weekly at http://www.wshu.org/duesing