Spring Cleanup: To Rake or Not to Rake–that is my Question

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that delicate white snowdrops were peeking up through the brown leaf litter. Hyacinths, daffodils and tulip bulbs have all sent up green foliage as scouts to see if the temperature is warm enough to launch flowers. In the early morning, I have noticed that birds have begun to welcome each day with their cheerful song. As I write this, it is only the end of March but it feels as though spring has truly arrived here in Southern Ontario.

Welcome as I feel for this season of renewal, the budding flowers and warmer weather feel out of step with a world turned upside down. In these troubled times, spring seems as incongruous as a beautiful blue sky on the day of a funeral. Cold, bleak weather seems wholly more appropriate to the sombre set of circumstances that the coronavirus has presented us with.

I watch the news like a deer in the headlights. I worry for the doctors and nurses on the front lines who don't have enough masks and gowns to safeguard their health and that of their patients. I worry about the shortage of hospital beds and ventilators to treat all those who fall ill.

And closer to home, I worry for friends, neighbours and my own family. Visitors have been banned from my Dad's seniors residence, and now, frail and in his nineties, he will be isolated and alone for the foreseeable future. I worry for my younger sister who lives alone. We almost lost her a couple of years ago to meningitis. No one was aware that she was lying on her sofa delirious with a high fever. Thank goodness my Mom thought to check on her.

My husband still has to go to work each day (we still have essential services operating here in Ontario). Over fifty, with heart issues and diabetic, he's in the high-risk group for COVID-19. What would I ever do without him? And my son has a small business that is closed yet he owes thousands of dollars in rent each month.

It's hard not to feel overwhelmed.

Last June

In the coming weeks and months, everyday life is likely to be very difficult, but I remain hopeful. I hope that waiting on the other side of this terrible time is all the beauty that is June.

When the news begins to weigh too heavily, I head out to the garden and the world recedes long enough for me to regain my bearings. More than ever, the garden is our sanctuary.

Spring Cleanup

This finally brings me to the subject of today's post. Over the years, gardening experts have changed their advice with regard to raking the garden clean in of fallen leaves in the autumn and any remaining debris in the spring. I find this course correction disconcerting. Though our efforts have always been well-intentioned, it seems we have been doing the wrong thing for years. How can we be sure we are finally getting it right?

With this in mind, I want to take a closer look at the spring practice of raking a garden clear of leaves and other debris. Don't expect new me to counter the old advice with a new set of edicts. When it comes to the subject of a seasonal garden cleanup, I view Mother Nature as the master–I am merely a humble student.

I believe that one of the most important things a gardener can be is observant. Mother Nature has lots to teach us. All we need to do is pay attention to benefit from her tutelage. I always strive to learn by way of her fine example.

What I will share with you is my own experience.

The Expert's Opinion: "Dead plants, stems and leaves littering your garden not only looks.3 bad, but it can also be unhealthy for your garden."

I absolutely agree that brown, decaying organic matter can look less than attractive. This makes it really tempting to start the gardening season with a fresh, clean slate and rake your flowerbeds clean. But in the last few years, I have been pushing these aesthetic considerations aside in favour of something I feel is more natural.

Raking your flowerbeds is not what Mother Nature suggests to me. She's a tough old bird who likes things messy. She doesn't tidy her world up, nor does she meddle with the order of things. Mother Nature is as content with death and decay as she is with birth and seasonal renewal.

Now, I get that a cultivated garden is not a nature preserve or a forest where nature has free rein.  At least to some degree, we need to keep the property around our homes tidy. So what I try to do is balance the need for order with my deeply held desire to have my garden be a haven for animals, birds and insects. Seeing bees, butterflies and nesting birds always thrills me. I want to do everything I can to encourage visitors of all kinds. And yes, I'll accept the good with the bad (though the "bad" may not get the same warm welcome! LOL)

So in the fall and spring, I do rake the lawn and my gravel paths clear of leaves (the last thing I need is decaying organic matter to make the free-draining gravel an ideal spot for weeds). I compost most of the leaves and make dark, beautiful leaf mould.  I wish I had a shredder or a lawnmower with a collection bag to speed up my composting, but I do not. It takes longer for the unshredded leaf litter to break down (8 months. I have read that other types of leaves, such as Oak leaves, can take even longer to break down), but the end result is well worth the wait.

I don't rake my flowerbeds. Most of the Maple leaves that drop, fade into the background by the time the tulips are finished. A carpet of brown leaves in the spring takes some getting used to, but I've learned not to mind it. If my flowerbeds have a nice crisp edge and the pathways and lawn are clear, I am perfectly happy.

I use an old Dollarstore broom to sweep up the maple helicopters that fall onto the gravel from the huge tree at the back of the property. The broom does a good job of gathering the lightweight maple keys, but not the gravel.

Every year hundreds of black walnuts drop into the garden and on the lawn. In April, I collect any walnuts I missed in my autumn cleanup with this handy tool. By early spring, the walnuts have turned into a black, oily mess.

Bulbs don't get much smaller than these yellow Winter Aconites.

More of the advice we've been given: "Leaf litter will prevent delicate bulbs from emerging."

Not in my experience.

Even the most delicate of bulbs and foliage seem to make it up through the leafy carpet. Sometimes a bulb will shoot up through the centre of a brown leaf and get caught temporarily. If I happen to notice the problem, I'll sometimes help things along by removing the leaf. Left to its own devices, the fresh growth always seems to breakthrough.

Even this delicate fern-like foliage seems to have no problem breaking through the leaf litter.

True or False: "A thick carpet of leaves will smother your plants."

In my experience, fallen leaves act like a blanket that protects my perennials through the winter months. In spring, the maple leaves that cover the back section of the yard begins to break down fairly rapidly. As fresh growth emerges, what remains of the old leaves becomes hidden.
On the one hand, the brown litter acts as a mulch discouraging weeds. And by the same token, the layer of leaves can impede any beneficial self-seeding (something to bear in mind and consider).

"Seed heads standing over the winter are fantastic for birds."

I wish I found this advice was more true! Birds have very specific preferences.

Inspired by a Youtube video one winter, I hung orange slices out for the birds. They looked pretty, but the birds probably rolled there eyes at my stupidity. Oranges are not exactly a standard food source for birds in my Southern Ontario garden.

In a typical home garden in Canada and the U.S., the vast majority of plants are non-native. If you do want to help out, plant the native species that birds in your area use for food in winter. It may take some pains to get this right. Though I have a number of native plants, I still find that vast majority of the seed heads in my garden remain untouched by birds in the winter months. As a result, I chop and drop most of my perennials down in the autumn.

"Brush back thick leaves from the crown of your plants." Good Advice? 

If you have mounded mulch or leaves to protect the crown of your plants, then yes, I'd remove that extra layer of protection. Other than that, I find it unnecessary to fuss with leaf litter around the crowns of my perennials.

"Lots of beneficial insects, including pollinators...spend the winter hunkered down in hollow plant stems either as adults or pupae... Hold off on your spring garden cleanup until daytime temperatures consistently reach the 50's, if possible. "

As I have said, I like to encourage birds, insects and other wildlife with my gardening efforts, but I find this advice hard to live with. Waiting for temperatures to consistently reach 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 Celsius) takes the work that can be spread over many weeks and compacts it into a monumental job.

In the past, I used to cut down, gather and then compost faded foliage each fall, but I began to question the reasoning for relocating it. Why not just leave old stems and leaves to break down around the base of each plant? So as an experiment, I started chopping each perennial down in segments and letting them fall to the ground. I "chop and drop" as many perennials as I can in the fall. The rest I do in the spring.

The only exception might be woody perennials that are slow to compost. Those I handle in the traditional way.

"Dead plant material can harbour disease and fungus that can end up causing major problems later in the season."

My peonies, stressed by drought in late July/August, often develop powdery mildew and/or black spot. To avoid the possibility those problems might overwinter in the decaying leaves I cut my peonies back to the ground.

Generally speaking, I don't compost any leaves that show signs of disease. Most backyard compost piles do not get hot enough to destroy pathogens (the temperature inside the compost pile would have to reach a temperature of 140 degrees F (60 C)) I don't like to take any chances. If I am in any way concerned, I place suspect debris in brown paper bags for the weekly yard waste collection (the regional government's compost piles reach a high enough temperature to kill weed seeds and disease).

One chore that needs to be done in the spring is removing hellebore foliage that shows signs of a fungal disease known as leaf spot. It manifests itself in brown patches on leaves and stems. As soon as the flower buds appear, I remove all the old foliage by cutting right at the base of each leaf stem.

Garlic Mustard bidding amongst the leaves (left) and in bloom (right).

True or false: "All that dead plant material also hides weeds that can take over a garden if left unattended."

I can certainly understand this caution, particularly for the rookie gardener. Leaf litter could camouflage a problem for a period of time, but like any other plant, weeds will eventually need to break through that cover of brown leaves to grow properly. Generally speaking, you can move in as soon as any weeds show themselves. If the plant spreads aggressively, however, you might find that the problem has literally grown.

Knowing your garden and what weeds to watch for helps avoid this issue. Already I am on the lookout for Creeping Charlie and Garlic Mustard. Both are active early in the spring. Garlic mustard blows through the fence from my neighbour's property, so I know to look for it along the fenceline. Creeping Charlie spreads so catching it early saves me a lot of grief.

"Leaf litter provides cover for mice and voles and increases their numbers."

Certainly, a carpet of leaves provides cover for insects and animals both beneficial and harmful. Just the other day, I found this little guy curled up in amongst some leaves. He's a Wooly Bear Caterpillar. According to folklore, the width of the fuzzy rust and black bands of the Wooly Bear forecast the type of winter we will experience every year. The wider the rusty-brown segments, the warmer the winter will be.

The Wooly Bear is the larval form of the Isabella Tiger Moth. The caterpillars hatch from eggs laid during the summer months and overwinter among leaves. When spring arrives the caterpillar spins a cocoon and transforms into a moth.

What makes a big difference to the number of mice and voles in my garden is actually our bird feeder. In past winters, we have struggled with mice in particular. Birds had always knocked seed to the ground where it became food for mice and voles.

The hanger on our old birdfeeder broke last fall, so this winter the birds had only a square of suet hanging in a metal basket. Without the birdfeeder, we noticed a huge difference in the numbers of mice!  The blocks of suet keep the birds fed with less of the usual mess. Very few mice! Hallelujah!

I'll end this post here as it has become very long. What are your experiences with garden cleanup? I'd love to hear if they differ from my own.

Will my bulbs survive a happy puppy?

Charlie looking all grown up at 8 months old.

In the weeks ahead, I have a number of gardens to show you, but it is going to be a challenge to keep this blog moving forward. Public gardens are closed and tours cancelled. I am not sure how well visitors will be welcome to private gardens. I will do my best to keep things interesting.

Take care of yourselves! I hope that you and all your loved ones stay well through the coming weeks ahead (and perhaps months). As more and more of us become housebound, I think our gardens will become an even greater source of comfort.