Let Your Garden Sleep!: Why You Should Delay Clean-Up Until Spring

Image courtesy of Pierangelo Ranieri, Unsplash.com

Hello All!

As excited as we all are to start getting our hands dirty and planting, here’s why you should let your garden snooze! Winter gives our plants, pollinators, and other beneficial insects their much-needed beauty sleep. This year, embrace the beauty of a “sleeping” garden and give nature the time it needs to renew and flourish.

Benefits of Delaying Cleanup

Waiting to begin cleaning up your garden until temperatures are consistently warm (typically above 50°F) allows pollinators and other beneficial insects to naturally emerge from their winter hideouts. When you clear away plant debris too early, you risk disrupting their life cycles and depleting their numbers, leading to reduced biodiversity in your garden.

Leaving plant material in place also helps enrich your soil, as organic matter breaks down over the winter. Additionally, this plant material acts as a natural mulch layer that will help insulate roots, retain moisture, and suppress weeds. That natural mulch layer will help improve your soil health, while also saving you work in the long run!

Image courtesy of Luke Schobert, Unsplash.com

Pollinator Winter Sanctuary

Leaving behind twigs, leaves, branches, logs, hollow plant stems, weeds, and other plant debris of the sort help provide critical shelter for overwintering insects like bees, butterflies, wasps, moths, spiders, and more! Many of these insects also lay eggs that overwinter in plant debris as well. Additionally, plant debris can help feed and protect larvae, nymphs, eggs, and pupae of beneficial insects when they awake from dormancy in the spring.

Tips for a Pollinator-Friendly Winter Garden

• Leave the Leaves! – Rake leaves into piles in your yard or throw a nice thick layer over your garden beds. This gives insects designated areas to take refuge! *note: If you have fruit trees, do not use their leaves to compost or use as beneficial insect sanctuaries. Their leaves can contain pesticides, diseases, fungus, and other properties that can harm insects, or even spread diseases or fungus back to your fruit trees or other plants the following spring*
• Skip the Pruning! – Now, there’s always necessary pruning that is best to do in winter for certain plants but leaving hollow and pithy stems from plants like Hydrangeas, Elderberry, Bee Balm, Joe Pye Weed, and Grasses to name a few will provide nesting sites for insects!
• Keep Logs and Twigs! – Branches, twigs, and logs provide safe spaces for insects and small animals during the winter.
• Be Patient! – Wait until temperatures are consistently above 50°F before removing any plant debris. This gives emerging pollinators a chance to wake up and find a new home.

Winter Gardening To-Do’s

With all of our excitement for Spring’s arrival, here are some tasks to keep you busy until your garden awakes!

• Start your seeds indoors! – Some great seeds to sow indoors in mid-late February in KC are Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts, and Cabbage and other cool season crops. Use a high quality grow light for best results! Starting the beginning of March, you could begin sowing Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants! You could also start sowing seeds for Cut Flower Gardens in late February or early March!
• Tool TLC! – Give your gardening tools some much needed TLC! Clean, sharpen, and oil your gardening tools to prepare for spring!
• Seed Shopping Spree! – Now is a great time to start getting your seeds! Come visit us at Colonial Gardens for a wide variety of vegetable, fruit, and flower seeds!
• Gardening Plans! – Now is a terrific time to map out your garden. Think about last year’s garden! What failed? What thrived? What are some things you could do differently this year? Don’t forget to rotate your crops to keep the soil happy and pests guessing!

Peeking into Spring

Keep an eye on the weather reports! Cool season crops might be able to be planted before the last frost, so if we have a frost coming through, cover them with frost cloth to give them a little extra protection! For warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers, make sure the temperature is consistently above 40°F-50°F. Here in KC, we tend to have one last frost around the middle to end of March, so be diligent to watch for frosts. The first or second week of April is typically the safe zone to start planting!

Here's to a garden that’s going to wake up more fabulous than ever!

Until next time, stay rooted in nature, bloom with confidence, and let every season bring new growth,

Ava, Nursery Specialist at Colonial Gardens

Looking for help with your Spring garden? Sign up for a Tree Consultation with Ava!