Loading…
30
Spent 2 hours at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the sign about their native plant beds made me rethink my own yard
The bed by the English Walled Garden had a little plaque saying they let the native plants bloom and go to seed instead of cutting everything back in fall. I've been cutting my coneflowers and goldenrod down every October for years and wondering why the bees were so scarce. Talked to a volunteer named Ruth who said to just leave the stems up till April. Now I'm second guessing my whole fall cleanup. Anyone here tried leaving stems up through winter, and did it look like a mess by spring?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
joseph9324d ago
Oh man I did the same thing for years and yeah the first spring looked rough, all brown stalks flopping over. I just snapped them down to about a foot in late April and by June you couldn't even tell. Give it a shot, the bees showed up big time by year two.
0