Living in leaf blower’s hell (or praise for the leaf rake)

With the development of buildings and condominiums delivered with a “green space”, humanity has been given a new horned animal these last decades: I mean to say the leaf blower.

Who has not heard its noisy roar at the end of the morning, sweeping away in two minutes time all the poetry of the residential districts and their comforting silence? Because this is really about making as much noise as possible, for what reason exactly? Just to collect leaves… That is to say, nature manages to have dead leaves dropped in the most discreet, elegant and silent way possible, so that modern humans can pick them up with an inversely proportional vulgarity and noise…

That’s how the leaf blower participates in increasing the number of decibels in the outdoor space, he who wears an anti-noise helmet not to be deaf at 40 years old. The problem is that neither neighbors, nor animals, birds, insects wear these anti-noise helmets …

So where does this bad habit come from? Well, from the evolution of gardening techniques among professional garden teams, of course. To make more profit, “gardeners” (but can we still call them that?) are being given more and more mechanized tools to make it “quick and clean”. You only have to look at the speed of their gardening to understand: shrubs cut like shells of the 2nd World War thanks to the holy hedge trimmer (tacatacatacatac), paths completely cleaned of their leaves thanks to the leaf blower (vrouuuuuuhouuuuu), and perfectly mowed lawns thanks to thermal mowers (brrrrrrrrrrrrm). Everything makes good thick noise. No pruning shears anymore, no rake anymore, no breathing anymore. That’s what we call progess.

Of course the private garden owner feels compelled to do the same, and to buy the panoply of thermic gadgets. I was able to witness amazing moments where gentlemen-nice-and-posh had to pass the leaf blower for 15 minutes to pick up … 15 dead leaves, which were wet of course.

So, it seems it is our duty to remind everyone that dead leaves compose an excellent humus in beddings and orchards, that the action of raking the lawn with a leaf rake represents an excellent meditative exercise, extremely rewarding, not so time-consuming and with a nice critch silence critch silence critch sweet noise. Also remember that gardens are not meant to be clean like bathrooms and that noise drives anybody crazy in the long term.

To keep your garden in good shape means observing it, listening to it, try to find out its needs, having fun spending the time you want gardening, and trusting your gardening instincts. No engine needed for that. Except that of the heart.