{"id":8279,"date":"2018-12-13T13:18:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T18:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/?p=8279"},"modified":"2018-12-13T13:18:39","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T18:18:39","slug":"leave-your-garden-messy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/2018\/12\/13\/leave-your-garden-messy\/","title":{"rendered":"Leave Your Garden Messy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Richard D. Gainar, CEBS \u2013 Lake Management Committee<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ll bet you\u2019re the kind of gardener who cuts down all old plant stalks, rakes up every frost-burned leaf,and makes your garden bed tidy each fall. \u00a0\u00a0No?\u00a0 Well if you are there are good reasons to change your garden maintenance schedule and wait until spring to spruce things up.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trees, ground cover, butterflies, birds, and other creatures that enjoy our gardens all summer need us to work on a four-season schedule.\u00a0 If we make things too neat, we eliminate much of the food and shelter our plantings could provide in winter, when some creatures need them most.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer\u2019s flowers shrivel into seed heads that feed gold finches, chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and sparrows in the cold weather while stalks and grasses provide havens for beneficial insects in hibernation.\u00a0 Decomposing plants and leafs fertilize the ground for next season\u2019s plantings and prevents oil run-off.\u00a0 In addition, dried flower heads and stalks poking out of the snow make for a pleasing site adding color and structure to the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A single bee balm head holds between 80 to 110 energy-packed seeds for backyard birds.\u00a0 Other plants, such as goldenrod, aster, and coneflower also produce abundant seeds.\u00a0Annuals such as zinnias and black-eyed Susan\u2019s, too, are a \u201cfeast on a stick\u201d for birds.\u00a0 Many kinds of native bees, such as bumble-bees, mason bees, and leaf-cutter bees, overwinter in the garden clutter.\u00a0 Many butterfly species benefit from the not-too-neat approach, some overwintering in piles of leaves, other in natural cavities.\u00a0 Leaves hold butterfly chrysalises and beneficial bugs such assassin bugs and ladybugs which need layers of leaf litter to survive the cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeave your garden messy\u201d is the new mantra for gardeners who take the year-round prospective.\u00a0 There\u2019ll be time enough in the spring to do the cutting and clearing that make way for spring and summer blooms.\u00a0 In fact, the messier the garden in winter,the more wild things we\u2019ll see next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, Love the Lake and Be Lake Responsible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Richard D. Gainar, CEBS \u2013 Lake Management Committee I\u2019ll bet you\u2019re the kind of gardener who cuts down all old plant stalks, rakes up every frost-burned leaf,and makes your garden bed tidy each fall. \u00a0\u00a0No?\u00a0 Well if you are there are good reasons to change your garden maintenance schedule and wait until spring to … Continue reading “Leave Your Garden Messy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,34,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lake-management-articles","category-sediment-control-sub-committee","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roamingshores.org\/RRA1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}