When the air becomes cooler, and leaves begin to turn colors, it’s time to gear up for fall garden maintenance. Or is it?
If you’re interested in doing more sustainable fall garden maintenance, then autumn might be less busy for you than usual.
The first big thing that you can do is to consider not cutting back your herbaceous plants. Leaving up plant stems of perennials and grasses can provide winter habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects that can lay eggs or overwinter inside dried stems.
The dead material can be cut back and removed in spring after the ground has dried out, temperatures have warmed and you notice insect activity in the area.
If you want to test this out before fully committing, prioritize leaving plants with hollow, pithy stems that pollinators enjoy, such as milkweed, joe-pye weed, ironweed, sunflowers, goldenrod, asters and ornamental grasses.
To provide winter food for birds too, don’t disturb plants with seed heads for winter. Birds take advantage of this extra food source in plants such as, but not limited to, echinacea, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, aster and sunflowers. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing little birds nibbling on the seed heads of your perennial plants in winter.
Leaving seed heads and stems also provides some color and texture against a blanket of white snow. It might be hard to imagine how a dead stem might look nice in winter, but I encourage you to give it a try to see what it is like this season. You might be pleasantly surprised!
After the leaves fall, consider leaving fallen leaves in your garden as mulch. This leaf litter can become habitat for ground-nesting bees and other insect larvae, helping insulate them throughout winter.
If leaves drop on your lawn, try mowing the leaves (you may have to mow over them multiple times), and leaving the pieces as mulch. The leaf material will decompose, and the nutrients will get absorbed by the soil, helping your lawn stay healthy.
Autumn is a great time to plant new trees, shrubs and any plants. Make sure to water them, even as they go dormant. Evergreens have roots that are especially sensitive to drying out, so thoroughly water if they are planted late in the season.
To make autumn watering more sustainable, consider collecting rainwater using rain barrels next year to water your non-edible garden plants.
One more practical and sustainable tip is to make sure your compost system is ready for the winter. Is the area that you compost accessible in winter? Will you need to climb over snow piles to get to it? Try to plan ahead now to help make composting less of a pain during the winter season so that you will continue this important practice all year long.
By transitioning to more sustainable landscape maintenance methods this autumn, you can save yourself time and give back to Mother Nature.
by Bonnie Kirn Donahue, Extension Master Gardener, UVM
Featured photo: Leaving up plant stems of perennials and grasses can provide winter habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects as well as add some color and texture against a snowy landscape. Photo by Bonnie Kirn Donahue
