This fall, you can do something easy for the environment. Rather than raking, bagging, and burning leaves, or putting them in the trash for some landfill, the best way to reduce greenhouse gasses and benefit your garden is to leave the leaves on your lawn! Leaves create a natural mulch that helps to suppress weeds while fertilizing the soil as it breaks down. Leaves also provide overwintering habitat for pollinators and amphibians. Among ecologically minded gardeners, raking is out. 

If you want to conserve some green lawn that’s not covered in leaves, find a location in your yard to leave the leaves until spring. This could be in a border bed, flower beds, or a mulch pile on your property. You can also simply mow your lawn with the leaves still on it, chopping them up into small pieces to break down in place.

In your flower garden, leave flower stalks or cut them to 12-15 inches tall. These provide nesting cavities for larvae in the winter. Our pollinator population is in decline. We need to do all we can to help them.

For more that you can do, see the actions on Energize Stow: Start Ecological Landscaping.

With the temperature turning colder, our thoughts turn to heating our homes and its potential expense. One way to look at reducing heating cost is to ensure your home is well insulated. Heat lost through roofs, walls and windows can be significant and cost money. The Environment Protection Agency estimates that homeowners can save an average of 15% on heating and cooling costs (or an average of 11% on total energy costs) by air sealing their homes and adding insulation in attics, floors, over crawl spaces and basements.

Where to start? A first step is often an energy audit. Through Hudson Light and Power, you can get a free energy audit from Energy New England. While the audit is a start, it is only a beginning and there will be decisions to make. What should you do first? Where are my biggest air leaks? What can I do to get the biggest return on my investment and do the most for the environment?

These are some of the questions which will be addressed in our next Randall Library talk on October 16^th at 7:00 pm. Jason Taylor, an energy specialist will be our speaker. He has been training green job workers for the last 12 years at the Green Jobs Academy and ABCD Weatherization Lab in Boston. He has also worked for Byggmeister Associates, Auburndale builders and several MassSAVE contractors.

Register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting by Zoom.

The Stow Green Advisory Committee has an open position for an at-large member. Working with town residents and government, the committee has published Stow’s Climate Action Plan, sponsored the article for the adoption of the new Specialized Building Code, and worked with the state’s Green Communities division and other organizations to help Stow achieve its sustainability goals through grants and technical assistance.

If you want to help the town achieve its climate goals and become a more climate resilient community, apply for the at-large position on the town website here. For more information on Stow’s Green Advisory Committee visit the webpage or send an email to GreenAdvisory@stow-ma.gov

If you missed Sustainable Stow’s September session, you can watch it here: Stow's Progress on Climate. You will learn about Stow’s plans to reduce the town’s carbon emissions. It also introduces a new website for homeowners that can provide more detailed information on what you can do to save money and reduce your reliance on fossil fuels including insulating your home. See Insulating Your Home

Achieving our sustainability goals is up to each of us. Consider participating through these local groups and activities.

• Tell your friends and neighbors to subscribe to the Energize Stow Newsletter here
• Visit the Energize Stow website for ideas and information about actions you and your neighbors can take.
• Join the Sustainable Stow volunteer group.
• Read Stow's Climate Action Plan.
• Watch the Sustainable Stow video series.

If you have questions or comments, send them to GreenAdvisory@stow-ma.gov.