Here is an article from the American Horticultural Society journal, The American Gardener, from autumn 2005 on fall cleanup. It includes a sidebar on Debbie Hillman, a professional gardener in the northern suburbs
of Chicago. ----------
EVERY FALL, most gardeners engage in the annual ritual of raking, mowing, pruning, and generally
hauling off yards of garden trimmings and grass clippings—all in the name of fall
cleanup. But this last-ditch effort to tidy up the garden wastes a precious amount of resources
in the process. In fact, overzealous cleaning actually can be more damaging to the ecological landscape
and less fruitful to the outcome of next year’s garden than not doing anything at all. Making a few changes in your autumn
routine benefits the soil and, ultimately,
the health of your plants. Keeping fallen
leaves and trimmings in the garden adds
essential organic matter to the soil. This, in
turn, provides food for worms and a host
of other beneficial soil-dwelling creatures
that break down the material, improving
soil structure and delivering valuable nutrients
to plants. In addition, leaving a few
things undone—allowing spent flowers to
remain or leaving a patch of tall grasses to
linger in a corner of your yard, for instance—
creates a hospitable place for
wildlife to spend the winter. In regards to removing garden debris or
leaving it be, there are a multitude of reasons
why gardeners should forego the traditional
course of action in favor of a more
relaxed approach. For starters, how about
conserving resources—including your
time, energy, and the fuel it takes to haul
leaves, sticks, and other yard trimmings
away? Rather than sending valuable organic
matter to the local landfill, why not
recycle it? The leftover organic matter can
be turned into nutrient-rich compost,
used for mulch, put in piles to provide
winter habitat for wildlife, or left to decompose
naturally. LEAVE THEM STANDING
Removing spent flowers during the growing
season will help keep plants blooming
longer. However, once fall has arrived and
plants near the end of their flowering cycle,
the flowers of many plants can be left to
mature so they will produce seeds. The attractive
seed heads that remain will not
only add a dimension of winter interest in
the garden, they also serve as an important
food source for seed-eating birds like finches,
sparrows, grosbeaks, and siskins. And,
letting seedpods form on desired self-sowing
annuals—nasturtiums, poppies, nicotianas,
and cosmos, for example—provides
a welcome source for next year’s blooms.
Just be sure to remove the seedpods of any
plants that you don’t want to reseed.
Use a light hand with the pruners and
leave at least a few dead stalks of diseasefree
perennials and vines in the garden to
serve as protection for the plant’s crown
and roots. By leaving some garden trimmings
in planting beds, you’ll be creating
a natural habitat of protective cover for a
host of birds as well as a variety of overwintering
wildlife, such as adult ladybeetles,
pollinating bees, praying mantids,
and other insects. Insects, too, need protection from winter
cold, and in warmer climates they also
Sunflowers left in the garden provide a
nutritious food source for a variety of birds. need protection from winter elements,
like moisture, as well as their enemies. At
summer’s end, insects take refuge in garden
debris and in dry stems. "Insects,
whether they be beneficial or pest, need
overwinter protection," says Jack Schultz,
a professor of entomology at Penn State
University in State College, Pennsylvania.
"Without it they’re sitting ducks for everything
from having their blood freeze to
being eaten by their enemies."
On the flip side, removing all this garden
debris in fall can actually upset the
balance of nature. Insects are a necessary
component to plant pollination, beneficial
insects help keep bad bugs under
control, and insects and other invertebrates
serve as an essential food source for
many birds and other animals. It’s a natural
synergy that makes for a healthy
ecosystem and lively garden. LET IT LAY
One of the most labor-saving, cost-effective,
and environmentally-friendly things
you can do—or in this case, not do—is
to leave your grass clippings on the lawn.
Since grass clippings are mostly water,
they decompose rapidly so there is no
thatch buildup. Grasscycling also adds organic matter,
stimulates the activity of earthworms,
which act as nature’s soil aerators, and returns
a natural source of nitrogen back to
the soil. This can add up to two pounds
of elemental nitrogen per 1,000 square
feet each season. If you have a mulching
mower and mow your grass frequently,
the clippings should be the perfect size to
leave on the lawn. A heavy fall of leaves on the lawn
should be raked up to avoid smothering
the grass or encouraging fungal diseases.
But those that fall into garden beds can
be left in place. As long as the layer of
leaves isn’t too thick, it will form an insulating
mat around trees and shrubs that
conserves soil moisture, modulates soil
temperatures, reduces erosion, encourages
beneficial soil organisms, and naturally
breaks down to improve soil
structure. Some leaves may need to be removed
from perennial beds where winter
moisture can promote crown rot.
If you can’t bear to leave your leaves
naturally strewn in beds, then gently rake
them out and add them to the compost
bin. Consider leaving a few small piles
tucked away for hibernating insects as
well as lizards, frogs, and toads that seek
winter cover. Unless your garden is huge, consider
raking your leaves rather than using a
blower or vacuum. Raking does not produce
the noise or air pollution of machinery,
and it is a healthy form of exercise. If you have a leaf shredder, put your
leaves through it so they will decompose
faster. Those shredded leaves can be added
back to beds or put in the compost pile.
Even if you don’t have a shredder, you can
chop up leaf piles by running over them
several times with a mulching mower.
Don’t know what to do with your
branches and other yard trimmings? Use
them as a base layer to start a compost pile
and cover them with grass clippings or
leaves. You can also create loosely stacked
brush piles in out-of-the-way spots in your
yard. Use a mix of thinner and thicker
branches and twigs to create differentsized
spaces that will accommodate a variety
of backyard creatures from reptiles and
amphibians to birds, bees, and other
winged wildlife. Top it off with a layer of
evergreen branches for added protection
in colder climates. Fall cleanup needn’t be a complicated
chore. Just remember that less is more in
the grand scheme of things—our environment,
our resources, and our day-today
lives as well as the ecosystem of our
garden. After all, wouldn’t you rather
spend a little less time working in your
garden and more time enjoying it?
Kris Wetherbee and her husband, Rick, a
photographer, are regular contributors to
The American Gardener. Their most recent
book is Attracting Birds, Butterflies &
Other Wonders to Your Backyard (Lark
Books, 2005). Sidebars: SIMPLE FALL TASKS
Prune out or rake up any diseased
plant stems or leaves. Discard these
in the trash or burn them if your
community allows it. Apply a two- to four-inch-thick layer
of organic mulch to tender shrubs
and perennials, leaving a mulch-free
zone of a foot or so around the base of
deciduous trees, and several inches
away from hardy shrubs and crowns
of herbaceous perennial plants. If you
live in a cold winter region, horticulturists
advise waiting till the first frost
before applying mulch. If you have a chipper, convert your
yard trimmings into wood chips that
can be used as mulch. Chips made
from freshly trimmed branches should
be allowed to decompose for a few
months before they are spread on
planted beds because they would otherwise
use up soil nitrogen as they
break down. Instead of focusing on clearing
things out of the garden, think of early
fall as a time to add plants and
other elements that support winter
wildlife. Consider trees and shrubs
that offer winter berries for birds;
cover crops that shelter amphibians,
nourish soil microorganisms, and reduce
erosion; add bird feeders and
baths for resident songbirds. Divide and replant mature ornamental
grasses and herbaceous
perennials that have developed vigorous
clumps, show barren and dead
centers, or whose flowers have become
less abundant. —K.W. BREAKING AN UNHEALTHY CYCLE
Debbie Hillman, a professional gardener in the northern suburbs
of Chicago, says the ritual of fall cleanup—part of what
she calls an overall "neatness aesthetic" in landscape care—
has led many American homeowners to unwittingly support
"scraped earth" tactics. "Every fall, homeowners rake up
every leaf from their yards…lawnservice
crews cut down every
seed stalk and vacuum up every
last crumb of loose organic matter,
serving more as outdoor
cleaning services than as horticultural
stewards," she says. "In the name of neatness, we
pay to throw this resource away,
compounding this folly by the injurious
techniques we use," she
adds. "By using leafblowers,
we’ve given ourselves excruciating
noise and air pollution. By
having to truck this ‘waste material’
ever further away, we use up nonrenewable fuels and
create more air pollution." Hillman urges homeowners who hire landscape crews to
carefully monitor how they do the fall cleanup. "For several
years, I tried making suggestions to clients or their lawn
crews about how to deal with fallen leaves (leave some in
ground cover or rake them from the lawn into the shrub
beds), but it didn’t work," says Hillman. "If I was successful
in getting the leaves left in the fall, at the first sign of
spring they would be vacuumed up. Now I make it simple
for homeowners and landscape crews alike: I tell them to
stay out of the beds!" The benefit to retaining organic
debris, says Hillman, is
both environmental and economic.
Those gardens where
fallen leaves were allowed to remain,
she says, "were the ones
that survived the last two dry
Chicago winters with little or no
plant loss; the yards scraped
clean lost mature trees, shrubs,
ground covers, etc. on an enormous
scale, with equally enormous
replacement costs." Hillman’s strong feelings on
this topic led her to write an essay that was originally published
in HortIdeas, an informative gardening newsletter published
by Greg and Pat Williams of Gravel Switch, Kentucky (for information
on HortIdeas, visit www.users.mis.net/~gwill). You
can read Hillman’s full essay by clicking on the special link to
this article on the AHS Web site (www.ahs.org). —K.W. |
