No bedtime stories in this garden

It’s that time of year again when I keep hearing about bedtime for the garden. That is, putting the garden to bed.

It’s an old term from when that was the idea, that gardens should be put to bed for the winter. My gardens are already in bed, they never left it. What’s a flowerbed if not a bed for plants. Same with a bed in the vegetable garden, or a raised bed.

What the term meant was ripping out all the summer annuals, hacking down perennials and ornamental grasses, and the one thing that does symbolize bedtime, is wrapping evergreen shrubs in burlap blankets. Most of this is unnecessary. Rather than consider this time of year as the end of the season, a time to put things to bed, I prefer to think of it as an extra early spring because so much of what we do now has an impact on next year’s garden.

Certainly, we should take care of anything that would be damaged over winter. Bring all tropical plants and any houseplants indoors before they’re damaged by frost. Better still, do it a couple of weeks ago to avoid shocking them. Dig up and store any tender bulbs like begonias, calla and canna lilies, and dahlias. Turn off all outside faucets, empty rain barrels, and drain hoses. Any planters that could crack if frozen should be emptied and stored dry.

But as for the sleepy garden, there’s no reason to do anything much, and no reason to hack down plants. Perennials are much better left standing just as they do in nature. For instance, all those wild asters that are blooming now will return next year as though nothing happened. Tall plants collect snow which gives protection, the seed heads feed birds, and the hollow stems provide refuge to beneficial insects, plus, the old flowers can be surprisingly beautiful when topped with snow. Come spring these plants can be chopped, dropped, and left where they fall. The old stalks will slowly decompose, returning nutrients to the soil while new growth soon hides the remains. As for annuals, they don’t need wrenching out. Save yourself all that work. Squish them down in spring, and like the remains of perennials, they’ll eventually vanish into the soil.

Then there are all those leaves to deal with. You could make a huge pile as I do, rotting them down to use as mulch next summer. If they’re on the lawn, providing they’re not extra deep, run the lawn mower over them. Once shredded, they’ll break down fast and be gone by the time you’re ready to cut the grass in May. Leaves are simply free fertilizer and a valuable resource, crammed with nutrients that recycle naturally. No one rakes leaves in the bush, but plants still appear in spring. If they fall on flowerbeds, so much the better. We often say keep the crowns of perennials clear, but providing the layer of leaves isn’t dense, the plants usually manage to thrust their way through as they would in the wild. But should you bury them knee deep in packed leaves they will have a problem sprouting in spring.

One place you can pile the leaves is around and under shrubs, especially those that aren’t the hardiest. Butterfly bushes for instance, usually die back to the ground, but in a hard winter they don’t always recover. They’ll love any extra protection.

Shrubs that are hardy don’t need any help so there’s little point in wrapping them. If you’re challenging the zone with tender ones, then do wrap these in burlap, but tough old conifers shouldn’t need anything unless they’re subjected to salt spray.

Finally, it’s a good idea to clean and rub down garden tools with oil before winter, though I often feel it’s me that could use an oiling and a rub down after hard work in October, which is why my garden only gets a bedtime story.

Visitors are Welcome in my Garden

Build it and they will come, and did they ever, everything from a wild turkey to an opossum, and all kinds of creepers and flyers. Thirty-five years ago, my current garden was a typical suburban lawn. Lawns are perfect for kids to play on and dogs to run, and mine accommodated both at times, but it wasn’t long before the vegetable garden and a couple of flowerbeds went in. Those flowerbeds became a floral amoeba, bulging out, expanding and encircling the lawn until today there’s barely enough to keep a rabbit fed for a week. If they’d stick to the lawn, they’d be welcome.

I filled the flowerbeds with all manner of plants that thrived or died over the years as I experimented. I made my share of mistakes, planting things that behaved as though they owned the place. And then wildlife arrived that thought the same way.

I receive a lot of visitors, most of whom I welcome. I don’t much care for the slugs and snails, aphids, and mosquitos, but even they have a role to play, if only as a link in the food chain. I’ve had herons, groundhogs, raccoons, and recently an opossum that surprised me in the vegetable garden. I froze and it played dead until we both decided to go our separate ways.

Because my garden has never seen pesticides, I like to think all my critters are healthy. Only a few years ago it was the norm to spray everything that creeped or crawled without a thought to the importance of these creatures. However, most are beneficial in some way, as food for another or as a pollinator of plants. Some might not be so welcome, such as plant eating aphids, and yet even they’re food for ladybugs. The caterpillar or other insect that devours leaves is often a source of food for birds, especially when they’re also feeding bugs to their chicks. We might not like the less desirables, but without them we won’t have the ones we love to see, the colourful birds and butterflies.

My garden might be primarily for plants, but there’s a whole other world within it. There are hoards of essential creatures that dwell in the soil, at the bottom of the food chain that eventually links to us. It’s the bigger, visible ones that intrigue me. I often see something that is as interesting as the plants I grow. There are curious beetles that scurry beneath the leaf litter, unusual spiders, hoverflies, lacewings, butterflies, and some of the four hundred species of bees found in Ontario. All are feeding on plants and on each other, each one filling an important role in the ecosystem that is my garden.

My garden might be an oasis for me, but today I like to think it’s a haven for wildlife, too, and I’m happy with that. I might step out to inspect a flower only to discover a rare bug or an unusual bee or be startled by hummingbirds zooming in. Sometimes I’ll catch a glimpse of something furry and remember that it’s probably keeping the slug and snail population under control. In the pond are three frogs that help, keeping an eye on the water beetles and dragonflies during the day before going out on night patrol.

With a greater knowledge of the importance of wildlife in all forms, especially the ones that inhabit a garden, gardeners are now taking a different approach by adding more native plants to support beneficial insects. With a wide range of plants, a water feature, and an acceptance of the essential creatures that occupy a garden it is possible to create a balance where one group keeps a nervous watch on the other groups, with neither getting the upper hand. Nature was designed this way, to be in a state of equilibrium.

Yes, build it and they will come, but I really wasn’t expecting that opossum.