Falling Behind? Maybe Not!

When hot weather persists into fall, gardeners must continue giving our plants extra water and shade. This extra watering takes time and energy and encroaches upon our other seasonal garden chores.

My fruit, crabapples, pineapple guava, and pomegranates, need to be monitored, trying to decide the perfect time of harvest that ensures perfect ripeness but beats squirrels and birds to the bounty. Flowers need to be deadheaded, perennials cut back. There's pruning to be done, leaves to be raked, and so many leaves. And then it all must be hauled away. The traditional fall clean up. Many years I feel I can't keep up, I'm falling behind.

But it turns out that not deadheading the last of the spent flowers of the season allows them to develop seed heads and pods that can feed birds. Many seed heads can even be decorative and architectural over the winter months. They can later be removed in early spring.

Leaving some vertical hollow stems standing provides homes for some solitary native bees to overwinter. A small dead shrub, tree, or stump on the edge of your plantings may provide a safe retreat for many kinds of wildlife.

And what about those leaves? Leaves create a natural mulch for your garden and landscape. Mulches help suppress weeds and protect the soil from extremes of temperature. They help soil hold moisture and cut down on soil erosion. Insects, lizards, and frogs appreciate having leaves left on the ground; it gives them a wonderful habitat. And when leaves break down, they add nutrients to the soil making it richer and improving the texture.

Leaves from diseased plants are exceptions to the above suggestions. Leaves and fruit from diseased plants should be removed from the ground as soon as possible and thrown away, not composted. Some plant diseases can be controlled by this interruption of the disease life cycle.

So, consider allowing your landscape to be a little less tidy and manicured over the fall and winter. This will reap huge benefits for the soil, pollinators, and other wildlife. And maybe it will allow us a little more time in the fall to be mellow and enjoy the season. I love watching the tiny, yellow birds enjoying the Russian sage seeds.

Lesser Goldfinch by Sharon in Llano is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.