To clear or not to clear??

madmaggie

Hi all, I'm having an argument with myself these days. I have always cut back perennials, cleared away annuals and weeds, and left the flower beds pretty bare over the winter. From watching tv and reading gardening magazines, current advice is not to be too tidy, and to leave stuff standing for overwintering insects. I'm finding it difficult to go against gardening practice of the last 40 years, but it is tempting, if only to save my back. Any thoughts?

macraignil

Protects the soil as well to have something there over winter.

Would still not allow weeds go to seed in the flower beds though as that would make more work in future.

It's a good time to divide some perennials now as well as they will survive and eventually grow again better in darker wetter conditions.

Some plants will also flower through winter so some of these might be worth adding to the flower beds if you are not clearing them.

_Brian

madmaggie wrote: »

Hi all, I'm having an argument with myself these days. I have always cut back perennials, cleared away annuals and weeds, and left the flower beds pretty bare over the winter. From watching tv and reading gardening magazines, current advice is not to be too tidy, and to leave stuff standing for overwintering insects. I'm finding it difficult to go against gardening practice of the last 40 years, but it is tempting, if only to save my back. Any thoughts?

We leave it until spring.
It also keeps heavy frosts off the plants and they get a better start.

Soil shouldn’t be clear for very long, it allows a host of problems

magicbastarder

we desperately need to tear our main flower bed asunder, it's a mess with self seeded plants and plants which have overgrown their space.
loads of astrantia and verbena, but we do try to hold off till the spring; the verbena and sedums are still in flower at the moment anyway.

my3cents

Professionally always did this in the autumn and kept hoeing the soil the odd time during the winter.

Old habit that if you want a tidy garden is the way to go, big problem is that in the spring you don't always have the right conditions and run out of time to do the same work.

However there probably is a lot of benefit to the wild life to leaving it to the spring.

My wife likes to leave it an never gets all the work she wants doing done in the spring.

Harry Palmr

One way to get round the bare soil poser is to plant ground covering plants - one or more of the Vinca Minor family, Cotoneaster Dammeri, Pachysandra terminalis (good in the shade), Lysimachia-nummularia-Aurea for some brighter colour

madmaggie

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll leave until spring, and see how it works out. My perennials are packed in, so I don't need ground cover, but some excellent suggestions in the above post.

I do gardening three days a week for two elderly people, and they prefer the cleared up look for winter. I find that with the change in climate, and gardening practices, my tried and trusted books are now very dated.