Leaf blowers’ din -- and dust

RE “Sound and Fury in the Garden” [Aug. 18]: The article was excellent and long overdue! I agree with your observations and remembrances of the time before those leaf blowers and other unnecessary yard maintenance machines. I wanted to add a point I never see mentioned or discussed: That dust is raised over and over and adds to the particulate matter in our air.

Why don’t people think about this? This dust -- blown into the middle of the street, then blown back to the curb and sidewalk and driveway by passing cars -- coats our cars and homes. And what about children’s play equipment, pools, bird feeders or birdbaths?

SALLY JOHNSTONE

Los Angeles

*

TIRED of all those noisy leaf blowers? Let’s try a rake! A hand mower! Shears! Pruners! It’s the L.A. solution for now -- an outdoor workout that actually accomplishes something. The search for a solution can be an exercise in frustration, or it can just be exercise.

BARBARA LAFFAN

Venice

*

AT least in Sherman Oaks, there seems to be a cure for the noise: Have no landscaping. Scraping the 1,200-square-foot house and 50-year-plus mature landscaping off the lot and replacing them with a 5,000-square-foot box surrounded by concrete walkways and driveways eliminate the mower, edger and hedger, though not the blower.

Because there is so little landscaping to tend, you would think homeowners could get out there and sweep the concrete themselves. But why, when you already have a nanny, a housekeeper and a pool guy caring for everything else?

THOMAS H. GRANT

Sherman Oaks

*

I agree 100% with your support for “quiet gardening.” Everyday I hear noise from various garden machinery and trucks arriving to mow the small patches of lawn, and I think: If only the local aesthetic encouraged people to choose plants for their actual characteristics rather than an idealized, manicured look, then we could eliminate the noise from excessive gardening.

Of course, my solution is native plants. The garden noise I do enjoy is that of the hummingbirds and other animals coming to visit for their daily meal.

LAURA CURRAN

Corona del Mar