Seasonal reminder: many insect species need the shelter of fallen leaves now and until springtime.
Modern lawn-care practices amount to devastating habitat loss. You can learn more about good choices for your area from your local county extension office.
If your office has been defunded, you can also try your friendly neighborhood public librarian.
But if you let the fallen leaves sit on your lawn all winter they are a matted wet mess in the spring and they kill your lawn. I blow mine to wooded areas at the edges of my property
That’s just revealing how strange and unnatural lawns are. I switched to low-growing native plants and have been very happy with almost zero maintenance.
Well, what is natural and where is the line?
We domisticated grazing animals since a while in large numbers, the smaller ones do produce something like a lawn. And soft grass is just really nice to play around with the kids. So I also simply keep bushes and tree spots for the leaves and insects.
It’s not really a complicated philosophical question.
Lawns aren’t native to your area. That type of grass didn’t evolve there, and it didn’t evolve to being trimmed short. That’s why it doesn’t produce seeds and why it’s killed by leaves.
But grass is annoying and killing it is good
And mosquito city during the fall here in Texas