Growing and dying are the balancing forces
    of living things. When we believe in the myth of garden waste,
    we clean up all traces of death from our gardens. Leaves and
    clippings go in the yard waste bin, dead trees and stumps used
    to be burned and are now hauled away. There is a better way.
    Everything that dies in the garden can nurture the living garden.

    
By the end of the winter, all the dead
    needles on this eastern white pine will be gone. Then the tiny
    branches will go. Larger limbs will decay and drop in a windstorm.
    In a few years, the trunk will draw insects that will feed woodpeckers
    and other birds. They will carve holes that will become homes
    to still other birds. In time, the whole tree will fall in pieces
    to the ground, telling its unique story in the garden.
Click here to see this tree when it was nurtured by the decay of others.