Photo: Common Eastern Bumblebee, Judy Gallagher
Alda Krinsman
Another winter will soon be behind us--almost! If you followed the advice to forgo an annual autumn garden cleanup and instead left fallen leaves and dead plant stems in place to provide winter habitat for wildlife, your yard helped lots of local bugs and birds survive the winter and prepare for spring.
With spring approaching you may be tempted to do a spring cleanup of all that dead plant material. However, early spring temperatures can be erratic. The wildlife you were protecting in autumn is still sheltering in the dead plant stems, under leaf litter, or in brush piles. Resist the temptation to do a wholesale garden cleanup until days and nights are reliably above the 50-degree range. Before you grab your garden tools, spend some time outside observing whether any early flowers such as violets, spring beauties, or red maples are blooming, and whether any native bees have emerged. If you are still unsure about when it is safe to begin your cleanup, you can find additional guidance from Xerces Society here.
Even in spring, dead plant material from the prior growing year is still providing habitat for wildlife, especially native bees and other insects. Pithy, hollow stems from last year’s growth provide nesting places for the current generation of native bees and beneficial insects. Don’t remove or cut all these stems down to the ground. Instead, cut back stems to 8”-24.” This spring’s bees will use those cut stems as places to lay and provision their eggs, which will emerge as a new generation of bees next year. And don’t chop up the stems that you cut back. Leave them on the ground near the plant or in a brush pile to protect any insects that are late to emerge. For your own use, or to pass along to interested neighbors, see the open source brochure from Xerces Society on creating habitat for stem-nesting bees.
Common Eastern Bumblebee, Judy Gallagher
Nor should you be in a hurry to remove last autumn’s leaf litter. Queen bumblebees and other wildlife depend on those leaves for protection from late-season frosts or freezes. The leaves also feed the soil as they decompose, and provide habitat for valuable soil-occupying fungi and bacteria, as well as insects such as fireflies. Most new plant growth is strong enough to break through leaf litter. If any leaves appear to be smothering new plant growth, you can lightly brush them off the plant’s crown.
If you have aesthetic concerns about leaving plant debris in your garden, you might consider using excess leaf litter or plant debris to create a brush pile in an out-of-the-way area, thus creating more habitat. Emerging new plant growth will hide any cut-back stems, and, if you adopt the practice of using dense plantings of native plants to create “green mulch,” most plant debris will be unobtrusive once the growing season is under way.
By then, most stem-dwelling bees and other beneficial insects will have emerged from their protected winter shelters and will be buzzing around, filling your garden with life.
Catch up on past Wildlife Sanctuary Almanac articles here.