The movement to limit gas-powered leaf blowers appears to be picking up steam:

More than 100 cities across the country have already passed regulations to ban or restrict gas-powered leaf blowers. For people committed to their manicured lawns, the good news is that powerful electric and battery-operated leaf blowers now exist, and they are quieter and greener and healthier than gasoline-powered blowers. Their market share is also growing rapidly; electric equipment now represents roughly 44 percent of lawn-care machinery sales.

But, would this movement extend to not doing anything about fallen leaves?

But the trouble with leaf blowers isn’t only their pollution-spewing health consequences. It’s also the damage they do to biodiversity. Fallen leaves provide protection for overwintering insects and the egg sacs of others. Leaf blowers, whether electric or gasoline-powered, dislodge the leaf litter that is so essential to insect life — the insect life that in turn is so essential to birds and other wildlife.

The ideal fertilizer and mulch can’t be found in your local garden center. They are available at no cost in the form of a tree’s own leaves. The best thing to do with fallen leaves is to mulch them with a lawn mower if your lawn consists of entirely of unvariegated turf grass (which it should not, given that turf grass requires immense amounts of water and poison to maintain). Our yard is a mixture of grasses and clovers and wildflowers, so we can safely let our leaves lie. If a high wind carries them away, it’s hard not to wail, “Wait! I was saving those!”

And the leaves that fall across every inch of this wild half acre of suburbia are so much prettier than any unnaturally green lawn beaten into submission by stench-spewing machinery. All those golden sugar maple leaves hold onto the light, and for weeks it looks as though our whole yard is on fire, even in the rain. Who could be troubled by a blanket made of light? A blanket keeping all the little creatures safe from the cold?

A world without leaf blowers and/or all of the pieces of lawn equipment that sit within many suburban garages and sheds is hard to imagine. Suburbanites and lawn keepers in America can be very fastidious about what needs to be done: the lawn should be well-seeded, green, manicured, weed-free, and leaf-free. The lawn may even be “a window into your soul.” Simply leaving the leaves on the lawn…this would appear negligent, lazy, unkempt.

The argument above suggests the leaves are better for the lawn, creatures, and the environment more broadly. Perhaps this is the way to sell it: your lawn will be healthier if you leave the leaves. But, if the goal is a better relationship with nature, does this also mean other forms of lawn care should be undone as well? Once the leaves stay, what else about American lawn practices should be jettisoned?

The bigger question may not be about gas powered machines but about what a better suburban or single-family home relationship with nature might look like. Amid all of the sprawling land use and driving, how could the open space in individual lots better serve nature? Less emphasis on well-maintained grass could limit water use and provide more habitat space. Whether Americans could find this acceptable in appearance, for property values, and in connection to nature, is another matter.