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After weeks of weeding, feeding, and bug-catching, gardeners certainly can feel fatigued. The last thing on their to-do list is cleaning out the garden after plants are spent at the end of the season—but experts think you definitely should.
When to clean up a vegetable garden, flower bed, or landscape plantings depends on where you live, managing plant diseases, and making provisions for wildlife and pollinators.
We talked to master gardeners and have compiled a list of end-of-the-season cleaning tasks to enhance your gardening efforts.
Get Rid of Problem Plants
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According to Casey Hentges, horticulture and landscape architecture specialist for Oklahoma State University Extension, diseased plants should be removed from the garden as soon as possible.
“They are not good candidates for the compost pile—that gives the insect or fungi a place to overwinter and become a problem again next year,” she adds.
Weeds and nuisance plants should be removed from the garden before seed heads open. These, too, should be placed in the trash so the seeds don’t remain in the compost pile.
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Plants That Reseed
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Even if they’re considered annuals, many blooming plants will reseed in the garden, like Bachelor’s button, cosmos, and poppies. You can expect to see new blooms next year, so these can stick around in the garden until early spring.
Add a layer of mulch to the base of the plants and leave them through the fall and winter so that the seed has time to settle into the soil for spring growth. You can remove dead stalks in the early spring.
Vegetable Gardens
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After a bountiful growing season, a good clean-up of vegetable gardens is always necessary, according to Aaron Steil, a consumer horticulture specialist at Iowa State University Extension.
He says you should remove all roots, leaves, stems, and fruit from the area and add healthy plants to the compost pile.
Gardening Tip
Consider tilling the garden plot and planting fall vegetable crops or sowing a winter ground cover like oats, winter rye, winter wheat, or crimson clover.
Trees and Shrubs
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Take the time to study the pruning needs of trees and shrubs, clean up broken or fallen plant material, and add mulch to protect root systems.
“Pruning should be done when it results in the least damage to the plant,” Laura Payne, a horticulture educator at Oklahoma State University, says. “The best time to prune plants is during late winter or early spring before growth begins.”
Lawns
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Raking fallen leaves was once a standard end of the growing season chore. Today’s recommendations allow a bit of leeway. Leaves left on the ground to decompose will fertilize the soil by adding microbes.
According to the USDA, they also create an insulating layer during the cold winter and even provide homes to beneficial insects throughout the season.
However, leaving too many leaves can smother the grass and reveal bare spots in the spring. Use a mulching mower to leave small bits of nutrient-rich leaves on the lawn without killing the grass.
Flower Beds and Ornamental Grasses
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“Many native bee and butterfly species overwinter in debris in the garden in flower stalks, seed pods, grasses, and leaf litter,” Emilee Morrison, an agent from the NC State University Extension, says. “Overzealous fall cleanup can unintentionally remove these insects from the landscape.”
Leaving ornamental plants and their leaf litter in place through the spring allows these species to carry out their lifecycle within the garden.
If you want to tidy the garden for winter, consider removing annuals and trimming some highly visible areas, leaving all perennials and private spaces natural until daily temperatures rise to around 50 degrees F.
Garden Containers
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Follow the same guidelines for vegetable gardens and flower beds, remove any diseased container plants, and dispose of the plants and the soil. Do not add it to a compost pile. Healthy annuals that have died from cold temperatures can be removed and added to the compost pile.
If you live in a climate with below-freezing temperatures, remove the soil from planters because when wet, soil can freeze, expand, and possibly crack the planter.
Planters with winter-hardy plants will benefit from a layer of mulch or even a layer of bubble wrap added to the outside to add a layer of insulation to help protect plant roots.
