If you’re like me, you can’t wait to get outside in the garden and yard once the weather starts warming up. Like a magnet, I’m drawn everyday to go looking to see what plants are popping out of the earth, making their way into the sunshine. But in the recent past I learned two things that have made me change the way I garden, especially in the spring.
Hopefully you’ve left most of your plants standing through the winter. These provide food for birds, as well as habitat and shelter for invertebrates. Plus standing dried plants provide visual interest to us humans. The stalks and dried seed heads are a lot more interesting to look at than an empty garden.
But now it’s spring and you’re wanting to cut them down, clean up the garden, right? I know the feeling! But I learned from Agriculture Agent Debbie Roos of Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension that HOW you maintain your garden is just as important as what you put in it. She manages a large garden featuring over 225 species of perennials, trees, shrubs, vines, and grasses, 85% of which are native to North Carolina. (Here is her list of top 25 pollinators, including ones for each season.)
She recommends cutting down your standing dead stalks in spring, (March) at lengths varying between 8-24 inches. By doing this, native bees like mason bees, leaf cutter bees, resin and yellow-faced bees, will have choices and can nest in them. In a few weeks, the fresh, green growth will camouflage the dried stalks perfectly. It’s not hard to do and makes a big difference to our native bees, 25% of which nest in cavities like hollow stems. The other 75% create nests in the ground.
A second reminder is about those leaves you’ve left on the ground. By now you’ve likely head that many, many critters including fireflies and moths require leaves for part of their lifecycle. But like many people, you’re wondering after what date is it safe to get rid of them? When can you haul them away, and “clean” up your garden in preparation for spring and summer? This is a common question at talks I give about native gardening.
It’s also a hard one to answer– and the answer is not one most people like. The truth is that there is never a safe date to get rid of the leaves. Sure some critters might be done with them in March, and others in April or May, but there will inevitably be some critter still using the leaves–throughout the year. Firefly larvae live in the soil and leaf litter for all but about two or three weeks of their life! Yellow spotted millipedes and common pillbugs live in them all the time too, so when you remove them, you eliminate these critters from your habitat. The best thing you can do is just leave the leaves. And forget about them! They will decompose, increasing organic matter and putting those nutrients back into your soil. The leaves also reduce soil erosion, suppress weeds and improve the moisture retention of your beloved garden flowers and other plants.
Of course for some neighborhoods, and some people, that is not going to be possible. In those cases, I recommend raking up the leaves and moving them–whole–to put in a wild area, such as around trees or on your property line, or in another area in your yard where the leaves can just be left alone. It’s an unfortunate fact that fallen leaves have been given the name leaf litter since they are anything but litter. Do the wildlife in your yard a favor and just leave the leaves!
Thanks for caring about wildlife and our fellow earthlings! Enjoy spring, wherever you live.