My "Messy" Winter Garden

My wildflower garden - January 30

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There is a prevailing gardening myth about keeping a garden tidy. You shouldn't - at least not through the winter months. Folks that "deadhead" the spent flower stalks of the their wildflowers and trim back the dead leaves of their grasses are not doing it to help their plants, and doing so dramatically reduces the winter habitat required by a great many species of wildlife. I'm sure that some of my neighbors drive by my house (as this garden is in my front yard) and wonder when I will "clean" this up. The answer is not anytime soon.
Even though it is relatively warm here, the vast majority of my pollinators are taking a winter break. Nearly all of my butterflies are too. The winter-resident migratory birds are looking for food and part of their diet at this time of year is seeds - as well as whatever invertebrates they can find in the leaf litter and dead stems. This wildflower area may not look as aesthetically pleasing as it did from late spring through the fall, but it is equally as valuable in its current state. The native grasses and the dead stems of my taller wildflowers - the goldenrods and asters in particular, are providing habitat that is definitely not available in my neighbor's closely manicured yards. My tiny patch of "mess" is an oasis.
There are a whole suite of native bees that over winter in the stems of dead plants. Longhorn bees, for example, require them during the winter months, even here where the temperatures almost never dip anymore below freezing. Other invertebrates spend the winter beneath the duff of dead leaves. To remove this material now might make a few of my neighbors breathe a sigh of relief, but it would be fatal to the life I am trying to foster.
As I cannot burn this duff away during the normal fire season here, I will cut it back once the new growth is obvious. By then, the invertebrates that have made their winter home here will have awakened and won't need it anymore. The removal of much of the duff will also stimulate the new growth of my wildflowers and grasses. "Cleaning up" a garden has some value, just not in the winter months. For now, things will remain messy.

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