Vibrant Village ™

If your vegetable garden is looking anything like mine, then you’ve realized that things are winding down quickly.

Are you ready to tidy up?

It has been a long, horrifically hot summer, and, while my tomatoes produced an impressive amount of fruit in the beginning, the plants are now browning and finishing the ripening process of the few tomatoes still left on the vines.

Flowering plants are still looking healthy, but with few to no blooms.  Again, a large burst of flowers in spring, but fading quickly as soon as this year’s hot June arrived.  All this to say that perhaps you’re looking at some unsightly foliage around the yard and feeling like some tidying up is in order.

Ready to Tidy Up?

What do you do to “tidy” up your garden?  As with anything, there are a plethora of differing opinions on right or wrong ways to do it, and, for most of us, it comes down to aesthetics.  You want to make your beds look trimmed and neat. Dead or defoliated stems or stalks are cut back to the ground, bushes pruned and trimmed and a nice coating of wood bark mulch make the bed look nice and help keep the plants warm over the winter.  In this case, however, give some thought to being slightly less fastidious in your clean-up.

Clean it Up--and Clean It Down

As a second grader, I entered and won second place in a poetry contest at my school.  The contest was built around the theme of “Clean Up, Fix Up.”  Of course my entry was pretty rudimentary: “Clean up, Fix up this whole town; Clean it up and clean it down…”  I interject this to say that we often adopt this as our philosophy of Autumn yard cleanup.  Leave no dead stem standing or exposed, and no sprawling bush untrimmed--clean it up and down!!

Ant or Grasshopper?

Once, I read a wonderful article by Jim Hole titled Fall Cleanup Fable.  He compares the two thoughts of fall cleanup to the proverbial ant and grasshopper.  Of course, the story goes that the ant worked tirelessly to store for winter, while the grasshopper took a much more relaxed stance, and blissfully chirped through spring, summer and fall, ending up completely unprepared for winter.

Proponents of being a busy ant cleaner-upper could argue that leaves and plant material harboring diseases should be cut and eliminated.  As he mentions, diseases and pests can lay dormant for winter, but cause a great deal of trouble for the garden in spring.  But the garden “grasshoppers,”….the gardeners that choose to let things lie as they are until spring…..are not in the wrong.

“Nature’s not about sanitation; it’s about balance.”  I love his thought.  He goes on to say that our attempted “control” of nature throws fragile systems completely out of whack.  Those same leaves and foliage that may harbor pesky issues, can also serve as a warm blanket over perennial roots and a home for good insects.

Me--I'm an ant-hopper

You might define me as a blend-- an “ant-hopper," if you will.  I do choose to trim back dead stalks such as cannas or ginger lily….but only after they have completely died back.  I clean up the vegetable beds by pulling up any dead plant material and empty my hanging baskets and clay pots to prevent cracking from cold and water.

I am a mulcher, but prefer to use a lightweight material such as pine straw.  It looks nice (aesthetics do have their place) and keeps the ground at a more constant temperature without packing too tightly around delicate stems and root systems.

But on the other hand...

... the grasshopper in me enjoys the interest that grasses, seed heads and deciduous shrubs create in the garden.  Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowering shrubs for spring and summer with gorgeous balls of blooms in shades of blue and pink.

In fall, their blooms dry naturally on the shrub’s twisting branches, and once the limbs defoliate, the blooms remain to create a very Seuss-ian artistic sculpture for the garden.  The leaves of the Purple Leaf Winter Creeper (Euonymus fortunei) turn a deep red/purple in late fall and retain that beautiful shade throughout winter.  Perennials like Black-eyed Susans, Coneflowers, and Shasta Daisies leave wonderful seed heads atop tall stalks once seasonal flowering is finished.

Even in winter

Some fall-blooming grasses will keep their seed-heads throughout winter.  Besides being attractive snow catchers (perhaps wishful thinking in our area!) plants with seed heads and berries left on them provide food for birds and other animals.  Woody perennials such as Lantana or Mexican Bush Sage can be cut back, but I prefer to leave them as is until spring.  Besides the artistic profile the lovely arching branches of lantana create, it’s just a healthier idea to wait to prune.

In our area, the issue of water getting inside cut stems and freezing is much less of a threat, but they can still be susceptible to insect infestation.  So, just put them to bed with a light covering of pine straw.  If you do choose to cut things back this fall, be sure to wait until the plants are completely dormant.  If things are pruned too early, a spurt of warm weather may just initiate new growth and make them more vulnerable to damage from cold weather.

Crack out the colors

If the look of dead branches or the lack of green vegetation in the garden is more than you can handle, you can create your own colorful corner.  Spray paint is not just for furniture any more.  Should the thought of “animating” the beds that others see seem a bit too out of the box for you, find a nice niche in your backyard that only you can enjoy and “color your world.”

Entering a peaceful time

I am actually looking forward to a quiet garden after such a labor intensive summer.  So, once things are bedded down with a bit of mulch, I think it’s a grasshopper’s life for me—I'll chirp happily through the winter and stay as far away from an ant as possible!