Come November we enter the dark half of the year with hours of nighttime stretching longer than day. It is a quieter time in our gardens, but life is still there even if less obvious. If you’ve joined others in creating a garden habitat designed to support pollinators and other beneficial creatures, you may be wondering where they are right now. Some, like hummingbirds and monarch butterflies, are just completing their long journey south. But many are right where they were all summer — in your yard. They’re just tucked away for a long winter’s nap. That’s why slogans like #LeavetheLeaves and #SavetheStems aren’t just hash tags; they are fundamental concepts to gardening in partnership with nature instead of battling against it.

According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (www.xerces.org), the availability of overwintering habitat is one of the most important factors influencing populations of native bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects. Yet traditional landscaping practices focus on quickly cutting, whisking, blowing and carting all this vital habitat away, leaving few if any of the natural resources that pollinators, songbirds and other wildlife need to survive.
Essential overwintering habitat is easy and inexpensive to create. Fallen leaves, wildflower stems, branches and logs, bare dirt and areas under rocks are all examples of wintertime habitat. Swallowtail butterflies, luna moths, bumblebees and fireflies are all hunkered down in leaf litter right now. They are joined by other creatures like spring peepers and wood frogs as well as a plethora of beetles and other insects that songbirds will delight in finding while rummaging through leaves on a sunny winter day.

Leave the leaves

The urge to protect plummeting pollinator and songbird populations should be reason enough to rethink fall garden practices, but there are more. Research shows that leaves act as a significant carbon sink. In fact a recent study conducted at the University of Maryland showed sites where fallen leaves have been left hold 32% more carbon than spaces where leaves are removed.

Fallen leaves are also nature’s magic fertilizer and the very best mulch you’ll ever find. As leaves decompose, they offer essential nutrients to plants and the extra layer of leaf mulch provides insulation and helps suppress weeds as well. That’s right, the free leaves you are sending away now can replace that mulch you have been paying for all this time.

Left to compost, leaves enrich the soil. Conversely, the perpetual blowing of leaves so prevalent in our region significantly degrades our soil. Healthy soil is the second largest carbon sink on earth - we need to promote its richness, not blow it away! Healthy soil is also a gardener’s best secret weapon for plant success.

Leaving the leaves doesn’t mean you need to leave them everywhere, and they don’t need to be left exactly where they fall. For the sake of safety and aesthetics, rake or sweep leaves off driveways, walkways and other hard surfaces and right into garden areas. Also be sure that storm drains are kept free of fallen leaves.

Less grass, more garden

Keep in mind that heavy piles of leaves on turf grass will indeed kill the lawn. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Lawn has limited ecological value and a heavy environmental toll. Many areas of lawn could be repurposed for better uses like a shade tree, rain garden, pollinator meadow, food forest, or native hedgerow. But for turf areas you want to keep, rake away all but a thin layer of leaves from the grass while concentrating leaves around tree rings and in gardens. If you find that you have too many leaves for your garden areas, it is a clear sign that you have too much grass and too few gardens! Plan to change that in 2025.

With an eye to garden success, the act of leaving leaves should not be viewed as an entirely passive activity. You will want to be sure that garden areas filled with sun loving plants don’t have more than a few inches of leaves so that winter sunlight can make its way to plants. Because leaves will hold winter moisture you should also use caution to not leave too many leaves near plants that require very well drained soils. While leaves are perfect around trees and shrubs, be careful that they are not piled too heavily against trunks.

Your tapestry of leaves will look far more beautiful when adorned with an array of spent plants left standing. Learn to appreciate plants in all their life stages. In doing so you will create a whole new dimension and aesthetic to your space while benefiting nature at the same time. So often the focus of gardens is singularly on flower bloom, but that is just a snapshot in time in a plant’s life. Allow plants to cycle through their life stages and observe; then begin to think about how to combine not just flowers but subtle shades, textures, shapes, and nuances of beauty, even in death and decay.

Spent plant stems are not only adornments of cutting-edge ecological garden design, they are also shelter. Stems provide winter homes for many native bees and insects, some of which even lay their eggs in the stems for safekeeping. When topped with seed heads they are also a winter treat for many visiting songbirds. There is no real need to cut back the stems at all, they will eventually fall over on their own and simply decompose, further enriching the soil. But if you must cut, wait until late spring and leave at least 18 inches standing.
We know the look of a nature-centered space where organic matter is kept in place differs from the sterilized spaces we’ve grown accustomed to. And for some we know it may feel uncomfortable to break away from the clean-up crowd. But these quieter months are also a perfect time for conversations with neighbors and across communities about how we could all be moving towards a new garden aesthetic rooted in resiliency and life.

“Life in the Garden” brings eco-friendly garden tips from Cindy and Ed Moura of Prickly Ed’s Cactus Patch Native Plant Emporium, where they are passionate about helping people realize the essential role everyone can play in supporting life right outside their own doors.