Some choice quotes from the article:
[S]pent leaves that flutter to the ground aren’t a waste product. They are rich in carbon and play an essential role for the tree and the ecology it supports.
The leaves act as a physical barrier for soil, keeping it and its many microbes insulated, and also for the tree roots, as the wet mats of autumn leaves shelter the fragile top layer from the drying winds.
Many, many things live in these dead leaf layers: caterpillars of moths and butterflies, their chrysalises, beetles, centipedes, springtails, woodlice and spiders … and doesn’t the blackbird know it, rustling through the leaves?
No one loves wet autumn leaves more than earthworms, though. Sensing one of their favourite things, they start to work on incorporating them into the soil. Earthworms line their homes with autumn leaves, using them for bedding and then, because they are good housekeepers, they eat them as they break down.
Leave the leaves be: they are not a mess, a waste or a hindrance – they are life and vital with it.
We recently got a chip drop and cardboard/mulched the entire yard in prep for a more food and natives oriented lawn (and to kill the grass). The neighbors and family are incredulous, but the enormous earthworms we keep finding seem to enjoy it. When the leaves started falling we started mixing them with the mulch, even asked some neighbors for their bagged leaves.
I think they’ll understand better when it starts taking shape. And anyway, it’s not their lawn, who cares!
That was me last fall with my “trash and leaves pile” that is now a nice new garden with flowers and decorative grass