Comment on The world was a nicer place before the advent of leaf blowers

kadup@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• ClanOfTheOcho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Being in a tropical country, I imagine most/all of your trees are non-deciduous, as in they don’t lose all their leaves in autumn and then regrow in the spring? Imagine all the leaves drying up, falling off, and the mess is left all over the ground. Cleanup is a laborious effort. Leaf blowers speed up the process by blowing the leaves from trafficked locations and/or to more centralized locations that are easier to clean the debris. Helpful, noisy, and often environmentally unfriendly.

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  • kadup@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You’re correct about most trees not following your typical seasonal variance.

    You’re incorrect about this meaning we don’t deal with significant amounts of leaves and flowers. Search for Handroanthus images, then imagine one on each sidewalk, and imagine all their flowers on the ground.

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    • ChilledPeppers@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Peiple just use “rastelos” here (is there even a translation?)

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      • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        A rake?

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I live in the UK, I have never had an issue with leaves beyond a brief sweep of the main pathway.

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  • pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The massive jacaranda mimosifolia (native to Brazil) which is dominating my front garden, laughs at your suggestion that it does not leave much mess on the ground.

    It regularly carpets the area below it in purple flowers, tens of thousands of small leaves, hundreds of twigs/seed pods and a few larger dried branches. Not just one season either - it flowers multiple times a year with how weird the weather is nowadays. The birds and bees like it though so we’re cool.

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• pemptago@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I envy you. They are the bane of my existence. I have 4 neighbors that use them for landscaping once a week, most of the year. As for the appeal: you ever see a kid use a straw to blow stuff around? My theory is leaf blowers are on extension of that curiosity. A toy, really. When I hear someone rationalizing their use of a leaf blower, I hear someone talking about a toy they like. nevermind all the times i hear folks revving them like they’re on a motorcycle.

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