10/23/2026
Like our gardens, as the days get shorter in the fall (yes, it’s happening already!) we are ready to take a rest. However, there are a few more things to do before we can tuck ourselves in to some cozy spot for the winter. Cleaning up your lawn and garden is on that list. This year and into the future, we might re-think whether we want to clean up those areas as thoroughly as we used to. We are learning more and more that those fallen leaves and dead plant stems serve as sources of nourishment and shelter for pollinators and wildlife who overwinter in our yards.
It doesn’t take an entire yard full of leaves to help out the pollinators. Maybe there is an out-of-the way spot in your yard that can contain leaves, or garden beds that could benefit from a layer of leaves as a winter mulch. See https://www.xerces.org/blog/leave-the-leaves . Like many things we can do to help pollinators, there is not an “all or nothing” choice here. We can start with small steps; the process of changing any habit often starts that way.
(https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2021-10-22-fall-garden-clean-pollinators-and-other-wildlife-mind) tells us that many insects in some form (egg, larva, pupa, adult) look for protected places to spend the winter. Leaves, bundles of stems, or dead plant material from perennials left in place can provide this protection. In addition, some of those insects will provide food for birds and their babies in the spring. Seed heads from sedums, coneflowers, and black-eyed Susans can serve as a source of food for some birds like finches. Sometimes, bumblebee queens will find a safe place to spend the winter among the leaves on the ground or underground. The Xerces Society provides good information on the nests that different kinds of bees use and how we can provide materials for them: https://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/nesting-resources. The hollow stems of dead plants can also serve as nesting sites for some bees—leave 8 to 24 inches of stems on the plants instead of cutting them back to the ground. Moreover, perennial flower stems and grasses left standing can serve as places of visual interest in the winter landscape. Iowa State Extension gives similar advice: https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/fall-garden-clean.
Another benefit to leaving some parts of perennial plants in garden beds is that by next spring, the amount of plant material will be reduced, resulting in less to compost or get rid of in other ways. In the spring, wait until the night temperature is in the 50’s before the remaining debris is cleaned out.
A word of advice—clean up any plant material that may have been diseased or harbored pests in the growing season. Clean up now will help keep this from occurring next spring again. If you have a “hot” compost pile, you can put these kinds of materials in that pile. Otherwise, dispose of the material in the trash (if allowed locally) or it take to a public composting site where the pile will probably be hot enough to kill the disease or pests.
As gardeners, perhaps our “new normal” is finding a balance between sustainability and beauty. Sustainability can be defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations, 1987). Our standards of beauty for the garden may change to include seeing them as nurturing the future all year long.
