Why would anyone want to empty a garden that’s still full of flowers? Source: A hikayeler.me & hanslodge.com, montage: laidbackgardener.com
Question: We inherited a large and very attractive flower bed when we bought our house last year. I intended to clean up the garden for the winter, but last year the flowers lasted until the end of October and that didn’t leave me time to do it. I don’t want to be caught unprepared again this year, but now it looks as if I’ll have as many plants in bloom this year as last. I’m thinking of tearing out the late-blooming plants and sticking to strictly to summer flowers, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. What do you recommend?
Isabel Cantin
Answer: There is really no need to clean up a flower bed in the fall. It’s not beneficial to plants and can even be harmful. Here’s why:
- An accumulation of dead stems and leaves are part of nature’s way of protecting the soil from erosion and perennials and bulbs from cold damage. If you don’t clean up, many plants will be in better shape next spring.
- Dead leaves enrich the soil by decomposing on the spot: when you remove them, you’re depleting the soil of minerals and you’ll have to fertilize next year. That’s extra work and an added expense for you.
- Many beneficial insects—the ones that control plant pests—overwinter in “garden debris,” including the dead leaves and stems of annuals and perennials. By cleaning up in the fall, you may be making your garden more susceptible to insect problems next year!
- Many perennials and annuals produce seed heads that ripen in the fall, attracting and feeding birds. By leaving them standing, you’ll attract pretty feathered friends from fall through winter.
Those are just a few reasons why the traditional “fall clean-up” usually does more harm than good to flower beds.
If you insist on cleaning up, wait until spring. By then, there will be much, much less to pick up, because most of the so-called waste will have decomposed during the winter, leaving you with only a few stems still standing. Anything on the ground you can simply leave there: your garden plants will soon hide anything unsightly from view, allowing the debris to decompose out of sight.
Rather than cleaning up your gardens, let Mother Nature do her job: she knows just what to do.