Debris? Or habitat for good critters? Amarillo gardener looks at winter prep

There are several approaches to preparing your gardens for winter, none of which is the single “right” way. Rather, the approach should be do what each gardener wants to do to keep gardening enjoyable. Some of the things to think about are insects, diseases, plant damage, the look of your property, and creature habitat.

While my gardening philosophy is “do what you want to do, when you want to do it”, there are clearly things that are better done at certain times. Cleaning up debris that harbors disease or provides a home for destructive insects and removing dead or damaged branches that are dangerous or that may cause further damage are important activities. The debris should be put in the trash, not composted, since few compost piles get hot enough to destroy the organisms you are trying to eliminate.

The way gardens look in the winter varies. Some people like all plant materials cleaned up so that beds look neat and tidy all winter. Some like to leave plant material that provides visual interest during the winter. A combination of both is also a good approach.

Articles about cleaning up gardens, including those I have written, discuss leaving some debris in beds as a priority item to give pollinators and other garden critters habitat for nesting and overwintering. Habitat loss from many sources for these largely garden-friendly creatures causes their numbers to go down which, in turn, is problematic for food production and many other agricultural applications which affect society.

Environments that provide flowering plants, nesting sites, and shelter are found in gardens, meadows, prairies, forest edges, hedgerows, and woodlands in all kinds of habitats from deserts to lush forests. Nesting sites and shelter areas can include layers of vegetation, leaf litter, dead and dying plants, rock crevices, tunnels in wood, plant stems, and others.

Among the many critters that are friendly to our gardens, farmer’s fields, and other open land are beneficial pollinators including bees, moths, butterflies, flies, beetles, wasps, birds, bats, and others.

There are many other critters that are beneficial, some of which also pollinate plants or prey on undesirables. Among the predators are green lacewings, flies, wasps, spiders, beetles, larva of some insects (e.g. ladybugs, AKA ladybird beetles), and bugs (mantises like praying mantis) and bugs like minute pirate bugs, ground beetles, and assassin bugs. Predators’ prey includes such things as aphids, caterpillars, mealybugs, scale, thrips, and others.

My approach is the combination approach. I try to leave my gardens in such a state that they could be on a garden tour. This results in my leaving almost any plant that remains standing intact, such as ornamental grasses, until they don’t look good or when they must be cut down, cleaned up, or otherwise prepared for the coming gardening year. I also leave leaves and other garden litter in beds under shrubs or other protected areas for the critters that like to inhabit these places.

Leaving leaves and other debris standing and on the ground, benefits the ecosystem greatly.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Debris? Or habitat for good critters? Amarillo gardener looks at winter prep