Time to Put the Garden to Bed?

This article is art, but not help. It mentions but does not really give instruction concerning things to do.

I miss Ann Raver as well. Her excellent City Gardener's Handbook got me started twenty years ago. Her attitude was do garden on balconies and narrow city plots. She had a can do and make do spirit that is missing now. It is your garden and a reflection of you. Doing nothing does not equal environmentally correct. Henry Mitchell's Essential Earthman and Russell Page's Essential Gardener and the collection of Hugh Johnson's Garden Musings have all become favorites in my garden library. But Ann Raver was the gateway. I tried boxwood, alberta spruce. false cypress on my balcony in Chicago. All burned in spring. All were replaced. But it was in the doing that I ended up with the correct mix of all geraniums and licorice plants which I overwintered. One year, I even had blue morning glories on the seventeenth floor facing the Chicago River. Thank you Ann for your excellent book and NYT for sharing her voice. And yes their should be a regular gardening column/section in the NYT.

I have two autumn tasks - I rake up enough dead leaves to fill a large plastic bin, and use them to layer with my compost over the winter, and clear a bit of my vegetable bed to plant next year’s garlic. Otherwise, qué sera, sera!

http://www.audubon.org/news/to-help-birds-winter-go-easy-fall-yard-work But if you want to make your backyard a welcoming winter haven for birds, some fall tasks call for a laissez-faire approach. “Messy is definitely good to provide food and shelter for birds during the cold winter months,” says Tod Winston, Audubon’s Plants for Birds program manager. But the seed heads of coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and other native wildflowers provide a helpful food cache for birds. “They’re almost invisible, those seeds, but birds eat them all winter long,” Winston says. Grasses—not the stuff you mow, but native species like bluestems or gramas—also make for good foraging after they go to seed. And letting other dead plants stick around can fill your property with protein-packed bird snacks in the form of insect larvae, such as the fly and wasp larvae that inhabit goldenrod galls. Leaf litter isn’t just free fertilizer—it’s also a pretty happening patch of habitat for a variety of critters such as salamanders, snails, worms, and toads. “If you’re digging in the garden and come upon these squirmy little coppery-brown dudes, and you don’t know what they are—those are moth pupae,” Winston says. A healthy layer of undisturbed soil and leaf litter means more moths, which in their caterpillar phase are a crucial food source for birds.

Wonderful writing and gorgeous photographs. I, too, vote for more articles by Mr. Tortorello!

Great article! Thanks for sharing. We live in a rural area with lots of fauna. By leaving everything in place We get to watch the animals and birds close up while sitting by a warm fireplace. Additionally, we can clean up the gardens in the spring after a long winter of inactivity.

Like many other readers on this page, I was thrilled to read this lovely article. During this sad and divisive time, I think gardening brings people together from all walks of life. Over the years, I've met thousands of gardeners from across the country and they were always passionate, generous, caring people. That's why I encourage the Times to bring back a regular gardening feature. We need something, anything, to help bring us together and cheer us up when the rest of the paper is focused on depressing current events.

I loved reading this article! I just cleared my potagers yesterday and had to clear out many brown zinnias, bee balms and annual vines. Thankfully my herbs are still rockin! I wish the Times had a section just devoted to gardening. I really enjoyed the writing in this article.

Wonderful! Thank You! I have cereal rye in my raised bed veggie boxes as well as the regular garden and that section of maybe new garden next year. It does an amazing job of getting rid of weeds, adds a beautiful color to a mostly brown landscape until snow cover - I blew the leaves off this week. Of course in the Spring it will add wonderfully to the soil when I rototill or in the case of raised beds dig it into the soil and if that extra section does not turn to garden next year it will add a beautiful section of tall green to the landscape and a great place for the chickens to scratch when the grains begin to fall in Summer. Thanks for a bunch of great new ideas for the next 2 weeks.

"This echinacea flower has, alas, passed its expiration date. Next stop: the compost heap." Wait. What?! Why is that beautiful; Echinacea 'past it's prime'? Looks fine to me--why not leave it? Even when the petals come off the seed-heads are lovely with snow or frost. And, as others have pointed out: birdseed! As for Fall to be the ideal time of year to prune trees: no! In most places it is mid winter or mid summer. Pruning in Fall or warmish or wettish weather doesn't give time for the pruning cut to harden and fungal organisms like anthracnose can invade your lovely Japanese Maple... Fall pruning was 'invented' by garden companies as away to promote work ($$$) following the busy months of maintenance and grass cutting. Try talking to an ISA Certified Arborist in your area about your trees and what they need, and when.

The yearly conundrum. Freeze and rip everything out now or laze in a warm house while wildlife makes use of the old garden. The second wins every time; I curse myself in the spring.

Please more home and garden articles. I was sad when the NYT eliminated the home/garden section. What a pleasure to come across this article in the real estate section. Even for city dwellers without plants or people who rent, we, too, enjoy reading articles about gardening and home repair. More, please.

Thank you! A pleasure to read, and leaves me hungry for more. Won't you please bring back more garden writing of this caliber?

Love this article--thank you. I have discovered in the SF bay area that fall leaves (yes, we do have fall color with liquidambars, pistache and Japanese maples and many more) can be swept off paths and sidewalks and left to compost on their own during our blessed rains. It looks good and it feeds the soil and keeps the work doable. Who cares about having a spotless and meticulous garden? I vote for the birds and the bugs.

Thank you very much New York Times for bringing back Michael Tortorello and his inspiring and informative articles on gardening. I was a big fan of Michael's writing for the now sadly defunct Home and Garden section and I'm all smiles now seeing him back in the pages of the NYTimes. I hope this will become a regular feature.

I garden this way too. Last week I was tempted to neaten up our entrance area by cutting down a few perennials that have dried out. I’m glad that I didn’t because the next day i saw about 20 birds eating the seeds. Please print more gardening articles.

More gardening articles, please. A lot more! I'd be deliriously happy if every article about the president were replaced by an article about seed pods. I suspect that thousands of other gardeners, like me, have stepped it up--finding respite in working with our hands and trying to make something beautiful and productive. Something good.

It takes faith to buy an empty pot on a cold December morning. 1$ for the promise of Spring.

It takes faith to buy an empty pot on a cold December morning. 1$ for the promise of Spring

Out here on the Pacific, my tomatoes and peppers are well up and bearing, the vegetables all have a good leaf structure and the fruit trees are doing well. Since it's pretty much always a low of 79F and a high of 84F, the 'season' never ends. Neither (alas) does the pruning!

I leave leaves where they fall in landscape garden beds, add more leaves by raking a distance of about 3' from the border into the beds, then mulch mow the rest into the grass. And I think I always feel that it's chilly out and I have consumption; my gardening mantra is similar to my cooking mantra: quick, easy, and simple. Plus, I follow the Pareto principle: Do the 20% of the chores that yield 80% of the results, and skip the rest. I'm good with 80%.

This is exactly the style of gardening I prefer. Use all those leaves to enrich the soil -- the cardboard and newspapers, too. But here in New Mexico, we don't prune in the fall because cutting off branches sends the tree a hormonal message to start growing again. We prune in deciduous trees in February when they are ready to start again -- except in the cases of repairing damage to the tree.

No mention here of bulb planting, which can still be done in November if it's been a mild season. Growing bulbs gives cheer to the late winter garden and also provides for pollinators at a time when there is little else available, if you pick single varieties. Some will multiply over the years and are a good investment.

No better advice or guidance to offer, just appreciation for this charmingly written piece. Wonderful turns of phrases, a lovely sense of natural places, and welcomed gentle humor. Thank you, Mr. Tortorello.

And please stop using leaf blowers. The entire point of gardening is to be in some semblance of nature. Why force noise, pollution, and airborne mold on everyone around you, when you can just... rake. Sheesh.

Moderation in all things. Too much controlling behavior ends with a sterile monoculture, but too little ends with disease and depredation. The influence of the gardener to make a natural looking but human friendly biome needs to be a gentle touch with a sharp pair of loppers.

Leave the leaves on the lawn and run over them with a mulching lawnmower. Leave the detritus to improve your soil and decrease fertilization needs in the spring. Rake only where leaves are on a hard surface or piled up around plants. Cardboard under leaf mold decreases air and light to the soil, so skip it; all you need are several inches of chopped up leaves. Now sit on your porch with an adult beverage and watch your neighbors kill themselves with amusement.

This article was wonderful reading and I really enjoyed it. I hope there is more writing on gardening! I am a very busy NYC sorta gardener that's barely in town and has no idea what he is doing. After reading this, I'm even more confused as to how I should be taking care of my wee Queens backyard right now. haha.

I've done the "leaves over cardboard" routine for several years. Not only does it create mulch; it also helps keep weeds down in the spring! I've curbed my winter blues by planting hellebores, which blossom insanely early. The flowers are sturdy and long-lasting. A bit of garden statuary, aka "yard trash," can give a winter garden some visual interest and whimsy.

As a landscape architect and designer, I say "Whatever floats your boat."There is so much beauty in the winter garden compared to the barren mulch beds of the suburbs. Back East, there is always humidity and fall cleanup for certain plants is a must for disease control. Peonies, for example should be cut as with many herbaceous perennials that literally melt away with the first hard frost. Hosta are disease prone and should also be cleaned to the ground. Grasses I leave up until we get a workable day in December. As the winter moves along, the winds start breaking down the grass and you will be cleaning that out of your neighbors garden in the spring, too. Many soft-leaved and silver-leaved perennials such as heucheras and stachys should never be cut in fall and merely tuned up in spring. Knowing how plants grow - from the crown, from previous growth, from rhizomes, etc., often dictates when to cut. Gardening makes us happy, keeps us young, and we provide beauty and food for so many species. Enjoy the winter.

Lovely. I also miss Ann Raver. It was great to escape for a few minutes. Thanks ST.

We cleaned up our vegetable garden, but our perennial beds aren't touched until the spring. It is so much fun (and so easy!) to clean up the dead leaves and find the new sprouts of hostas and irises underneath. After a long winter stuck inside, the day I can clean up my garden is one of my favorites every spring. Happy gardening!

It was a pleasure to read this article. Nicely written, witty, informative, and a reason I continue to read the New York Times.

Thank you for this article! How I miss the days of Anne Raver and the Thursday garden supplement. More garden articles please.

I personally love a wild slightly unkempt garden. If you live outside the burbs, why do you want to emulate those boring burbs and their commercial Home Depot/ HG-TV style anyway? Nature is full of surprises. I get new native wildflowers every year this way. So lovely and poetic.

The first two winters we lived with our large new meadow planting I did not cut the plants back in the fall. Grass seed heads are lovely covered with hoar frost and early snow, after all. Finches and sparrows were still foraging among the echinacea, rudbeckia and verbena bonariensis. The third year the voles moved into the center of each bed, warm and cozy amidst the collapsed grasses and the trapped oak leaves. That spring, between tears, I replaced nearly $1000 worth of plants, made repeat and time-consuming visits to my favorite nursery a half hour from home, and spent weeks when I had other gardening to do replanting perennials that had behaved like annuals. I understand the ecological benefits of letting it all be. The cost is sometimes far too high.