Re: garden fall clean up
Along the lines of non-clean up for protection idea, maybe the idea of
not cleaning up would be a good idea, especially in my area since from
what I'm hearing all the 'Mother Nature' signs are indicating a mild
winter.
For those in areas that have Wooly Bears, the Wooly Bear this year is
more brown than black, indicating a mild winter. I have just recently
heard of another sign - Web Worms. One of my co-workers just told me
that a local nature center told him that you can also tell the severity
of winter by Web Worms. I guess the more webs, the worse the winter.
This is the first year I can remember for never seeing a single Web
Worm! Another co-worker said the yellow jackets are nesting above
ground, the wasps (or was it hornets) are up high (?), and the squirrels
have not touched a bag of walnuts he has sitting outside.
From a gardening prespective (and for the farmers) this is not good,
from my perspective as a truck driver I say 'yippee, yahoo' !!! :-))))
All this is in contradiction to what others have said that with the type
of summer we've had means we're in for a bad winter. Oh well, I guess
time will tell......
Karen
Mansfield, OH - north central OH
z5a
> Never do fall clean up....waste of time as have to go around in
> spring and clean up winter's mess, so do it all at the same time.
> Also have this theory that the dead foliage on perennials helps
> protect the crowns from frost, plus a lot of plants maintain very
> interesting form for quite some time, even after they are dead.
> Think in very wet climates it might be well to remove dead foliage
> from plants who are subject to diseases like powdery mildew and
> Botrytis. I never cut down plants still in full growth.
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