Ask the Gardener: Why you should clean up less and later
Award-winning garden writer Carol Stocker discusses when and how to clean up your yards and plots and when to plant.
What to do this week Cut naked stems of April-blooming shrubs such as forsythia, fothergilla, magnolia, Amelanchier, PJM rhododendron, cherry, pear, and flowering quince on a warm day. Place them in deep vases of warm water to bloom indoors. Lightly sprinkle lime around lawns, roses, hydrangeas, lilacs, and vegetable gardens; your garden is only as good as your soil. Consider ordering compost delivered from a garden center to spread over your lawn or garden. If you want mulch, too, order and spread the compost first. Scatter bulb fertilizer around sprouting bulb foliage. New England lawns need fertilizing only in the fall, so don’t spread high nitrogen fertilizer in the spring for quick greening because much of it can run off with the rains and pollute waterways.
Q. I wanted to ask for your advice on cleaning gardens/cutting down perennials. I’ve heard elsewhere that it’s important to wait because insects are overwintering in that material. Can you write about the importance of waiting to clear out garden beds and explain when it is the right time to do it?
B.M., Lexington
A. Human nature likes to tidy things up, however, Nature with a capital “N’’ likes a mess, where biomass can be recycled in place to feed the soil. Tidy or messy? As truly wild areas vanish before the bulldozers, this is a conflict that is being battled out in our suburbs. In my increasing efforts to save birds and butterflies from wholesale eviction, I clean up less and later each year. I let old leaves and plant stalks decay in wooded areas where they provide food and cover for wildlife. I even dragged a toppled apple tree from my orchard into my shrubbery instead of the burn pile. I clear off lawns in both the fall and spring so the grass doesn’t smother, but I compost those valuable dead leaves rather than bag them. This natural gardening is both rewarding and lower maintenance. Vegetable gardens do often need to be cleaned up in the fall and covered with some kind of mulch to prevent soil diseases and erosion, but I now postpone cutting down my perennial gardens and meadow from fall to as late as possible in the spring. The challenge is how to clear room for emerging flower buds without killing wild bees and butterflies that have wintered in hollow stems and leaf litter. I try to wait until temperatures settle into the 50s, which happens gradually in April. I also avoid working in the garden when it is wet, because that compacts soil. Dry, warm, and sunny days are advised for cleanup.
Q. When is the best time to plant hellebores? Is spring OK? I know they are early-spring bloomers, so I wonder if fall is better. I have a slope under white pines.
M.K., Milton
A. Hellebores are magically early bloomers in the buttercup family. There are many colored hybrids, though most look murkier than their photographs. The Trader Joe’s grocery chain often sells perky hybrids of H. Niger “Christmas Rose’’ as houseplants that bloom weeks earlier than common H. Orientalis if they survive transplanting outdoors. I plant hellebores where I can see them from my house because they start blooming in March. They like a lightly shaded hillside and do better under deciduous trees than evergreens. I cut off their battered evergreen leaves in the spring. They are slow-growing so you may wait a couple of years before they bloom, but once established, they produce many flowers and seedlings, too.
The old rule was to plant spring-blooming perennials in the fall, fall bloomers in the spring, and summer bloomers anytime, but I violate that maxim constantly, planting hardy plants in April, May, September, and October. Summers are too hot for planting, but late May and early June are best for adding tender annuals.
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