During winter months, disturb a garden as little as possible.
Our first frosts have come, tropicals have been touched by the cold or even zapped back to the ground. Flowering perennials and grasses have taken their final bow. Our yards are slowly settling into some sort of pseudo dormancy—or at least as “dormant” as a garden can become in southern Louisiana, where the sun rarely stops shining and the rains are ever falling.
This time of year, believe it or not, I am thinking about pollinators and my garden visitors more than ever. After all, this is when they need me most. Flowers at the height of summer are important, but it is what is left untouched in the deepest parts of winter that perhaps matter even more.
Thus, my biggest advice when it comes to caring for a winter garden, especially a garden designed to better our ecosystem, is to just ignore it. Let it be. A great rule of thumb within the context of naturalistic gardening, always, is to mimic the natural world. And in winter, the natural world rests.
The greatest reason to leave your garden untouched as winter settles in is to provide nesting habitat. We want to create as much space and resources for wildlife—insects, reptiles, small mammals, and birds—while they overwinter in our gardens. Let's explore some ways this winter habitat can be enriched.
Thus, my biggest advice when it comes to caring for a winter garden, especially a garden designed to better our ecosystem, is to just ignore it. Let it be.
Leave Everything
Starting at summer’s end, stop cutting back your seed heads and stems. Let all those lovely fall blooming asteraceae and grasses brown and linger until spring, and allow your perennial and annual vines to brown and cling to the spaces they have grown about.
These expired seedheads and florets in your garden provide a source of winter food, especially for birds. In addition, insects, called cavity nesters, choose to overwinter in such spaces as hollow stems, fallen logs, and so on—keeping cozy within the tight spaces and laying their eggs there.
Disturb as Little as Possible
Try to not ruffle fallen leaves, step through your garden much, or move fallen logs or branches. Tiny homes are being raised throughout your garden during the winter. All of the fallen leaves and twigs are easy resources for wildlife home building materials. Bumblebees are interesting and create their homes in existing cavities; they like to recycle—sometimes taking up in abandoned rodent homes, sometimes within bunch grasses.
Even when things feel slow and sleepy, the ground holds warmth and infinite resources for various birds, as well as native bees, when things are left still.
Leave some bare ground before winter sets in for ground nesting creatures. Even when things feel slow and sleepy, the ground holds warmth and infinite resources for various birds, as well as native bees, when things are left still. These petite, solitary creatures burrow their way into bare ground, creating tunnels to overwinter in and raise their young. They especially like a good south-facing space for sun exposure. Find a few spaces—they don’t need to be large—to rake away the mulch, vegetation, and leaf litter.
Provide a Water Source
This is especially important in winter for birds. Help keep it from staying frozen over for too long during our few freezing moments.
Plant Native Plants!
Yes, exotic species can offer winter protection and benefit, but as always, natives are best. Native plants have evolved alongside our native wildlife to provide them just what they need year-round.
