By Marsha Mercer, Extension Master Gardener
Mention the name Max Ferlauto to a veteran member of Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia, and you likely will get an enthusiastic response:
“Fantastic person!”
“He’s our guy!”
“Local boy makes good!”
Ferlauto is the youngest person ever, at 18, to complete Extension Master Gardener training in the Arlington-Alexandria Virginia Cooperative Extension unit. He grew up in Arlington and completed training in 2014 during his gap year between high school and college, earning a perfect score on his final exam.
“One thing I really liked about the master gardener training in Virginia was the focus on conservation gardening,” he said.
While earning a bachelor’s degree in plant ecology at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, he studied plants, learned to identify thousands of insects, and developed a passion for research on insects.
Today, at age 30, Dr. Max Ferlauto – who earned a Ph.D. in entomology at the University of Maryland in 2024 – is Maryland’s state entomologist, working to protect rare insects.
At Maryland, Ferlauto’s mentor was Associate Professor Karin Burghardt, who previously conducted research and co-authored publications with renowned entomologist Doug Tallamy at the University of Delaware.
Ferlauto’s ground-breaking research provides data showing that “leaving the leaves” helps insects survive, while raking leaves can be devastating to insect populations.
Past research had focused on raking and bagging leaves to control pests with beneficial insects in decline — what some scientists call the “insect apocalypse” — Ferlauto wanted to determine whether leaving the leaves in place would help insects survive the winter. It does.
He sometimes says he spent his Ph.D. years doing “yard work” – a modest description of more than two years gathering data to quantify how many insects survive when leaves are left on the ground versus removed.
“We found 1,800 emerging insects on average in one square meter where the leaves were left,” he said. “We didn’t know we had so many insects in our yards.”
Of these 1,800, there were approximately 20 butterflies and moths, 300 parasitic wasps, also called parasitoids, 300 beetles, and thousands of flies.
For his Ph.D. research, Ferlauto recruited homeowners in the College Park, Md., area. Homeowners allowed him to set aside small plots in 20 suburban yards, where, side by side, some leaves were left and some raked. He placed emergence traps over each area. Beginning in the spring, he counted emerging butterflies, moths, and parasitic wasps .
Raking the leaves reduced the emergence of butterflies and moths by 45 percent, spiders by 56 percent, and beetles by 25 percent, he found.
Raking and removing leaves are not the only practices that interrupt the insects’ lifecycle and reduce their numbers, Ferlauto said. Mowing and composting leaves also kills insects. But it does not have to be all or nothing.
“You do not have to leave ALL the leaves”
Ferlauto knows not everyone can leave all their leaves. In fact, many homeowners cannot leave many because of residential restrictions or the need to use their yards. The good news is that’s okay. Leaving even small piles of leaves can help, especially in the right places.
It is more beneficial to choose a high-maintenance area where you mow your lawn, such as the front yard, rather than an area that never sees a mower, such as behind a shed.
“It’s counterintuitive, but these [high maintenance] areas become overwintering resources, and you are creating habitat,” he said.
Now in his first home near Annapolis, Md., after years of apartment dwelling, Ferlauto removes diseased material but also grows wildflowers, vegetables, and native plants that host beneficial predators.
“Now I can do all the things I’ve been telling people about,” he said.
His tips for helping insects survive:
“Put in a native garden, avoid using pesticides, and don’t spray for mosquitoes. And if you can’t plant a native garden, plant an oak tree and leave the leaves.”