Happy Leave the Leaves Month, plant friends. Did you know that was a thing? It's not only a thing,

but it's one of the simplest, most low maintenance, most lazy girl things that you could do

to increase the diversity in your front yard or backyard and save the planet. Today we're talking

with David, who is a naturalist from the National Wildlife Federation.

He is such a plant nerd. I had so much fun talking to him about the importance of not raking up

or leaf blowing your leaves into those orange bags that look like pumpkins. He is making the

argument that we should all be leaving our leaves on our lawns,

but with intention, in order to create safe spaces for so many living things to burrow in

and also save the planet from lots of greenhouse gases.

It's a fascinating conversation that I'm so excited to dive into, so without further ado,

here's David.

Welcome to the Growing Joy with Plants podcast, where we not only learn how to care for plants

successfully, but how to simply and affordably use our plant babies

to cultivate more joy in our lives by doing so. I'm Maria, former plant killer turned happy

plant lady, author of Growing Joy, The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness, speaker, podcaster,

and most importantly, your new best plant friend. On Growing Joy with Plants, you'll find

conversations about

house plant care, gardening tutorials, and wellness through the lens of plants.

Plant care is self-care on Growing Joy.

David, welcome to Growing Joy. Hi there. I'm so excited to chat with you today about something that, you know, I'm a millennial.

I was raised in the pumpkin leaf bags that you get and you fill up and they look like pumpkins and you leave them on your front lawn.

And that is so not the trend anymore.

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